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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25269058">as certain dark things</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookslikelove/pseuds/Lina'>Lina (lookslikelove)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Midsommar (2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Ethics, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Folk Rituals, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mostly Canon Compliant, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Prophetic Dreams, Romance, Romantic Soulmates, Smut, it's complicated - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:48:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>54,003</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25269058</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookslikelove/pseuds/Lina</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Theirs is not a simple story. </p><p>Or perhaps, it is the simplest story in the world. It really is a matter of perspective. </p><p>---</p><p>An almost (not quite) fairy tale in which Dani and Pelle each are born, live, and follow the paths they believed they should.  What comes before that fated Midsommar, during it, and perhaps most important of all: the messy, glorious together ever after.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dani Ardor/Christian Hughes, Dani Ardor/Pelle (Midsommar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>74</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>102</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. hearts get torn up</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello everyone!</p><p>It has been [checks notes] six years since I've written/published a work of fan fiction to more or less completion. But there is a pandemic going on and everything is completely wild, thus  in times of crisis brains get weird. Who knew that it would take a kind of fucked up implied pairing in a beautifully shot horror film to make me break that seal?</p><p>I probably should've seen this coming. Je ne regrette rien. To quote Natalie Portman, I never said I was a role model. </p><p>At this moment I foresee this as being about three or four parts. Let's see how this goes.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>“Tell me about the dream where we pull the</p><p>bodies out of the lake</p><p>and</p><p>dress them in warm clothes again.” - <em>Scheherazade,</em> Richard Siken</p><p> </p><p>“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,</p><p>in secret, between the shadow and the soul.” - <em>XVII (I do not love you), </em>Pablo Neruda</p><p>
  
</p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>xiv.</em>
</p><p>Angela Carter prepared her for this.</p><p>Hearts, broken and bleeding, still pulsing. Images of men not being worthy, of love misplaced, of women turning to literal knives to cut themselves free.</p><p>A grin breaks across her face, free to shine at last, her shoulders shaking from both laughter and tears. Tears stream down her face, tracing paths through her laugh lines, Dani knows that she has become one of them.A fairy tale heroine of the most original and disturbing order.</p><p>What surprises her is how little she regrets it.</p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>vii.</em>
</p><p><em>Theresa</em> from the Greek, meaning <em>harvester</em>. It’s a thought that her brain keeps snagging on. Through the numbness of the funeral, the estate management, the legal hoops that still need to be jumped through despite the obviousness of both the crimes and the fact that the perpetrator no longer exists. The officers who ask her questions, prying into the details of Terri’s hastily finished life, are the same ones who offer her burnt coffee and rote condolences. Dani offers her own weak <em>thank yous</em> and weaker smiles. The world is happening at a distance, everything distorted and out of focus, sounds quieter, smaller than it should be.</p><p><em>Harvester. </em>True to her name, Terri had harvested their parents. Had passionately engulfed them in her own darkness, had gone down a path that Dani can’t follow. Where there is and never will be any light ever again.</p><p>She’s twenty-five. She’s too young to be an orphan. To plan funerals. To pick burial plots. To stand stoically in front of a group of family and strangers to accept hugs and platitudes. To bury a sister who was sick, but was always (<em>not really</em>) on the verge of getting better.</p><p>Her throat remains raw from screaming and crying for three weeks after that hellish night. Her sense of smell flees her entirely, food loses all taste, her tongue struggling to detect any texture. Christian had held her that night, his arms wrapped around her on that too small couch with the rigid posture of a man with his hand on a bomb. Like she might explode at any moment. Dani had ceased to be a precious object, worthy of being held with reverence. In that night and the days that followed, she had slipped into a dangerous creature. Barely human at all.</p><p>How she came home, she can’t remember. The details have fuzzed out. Her best friend, Amy, had come over to help. Had shoved Dani into the shower and washed her hair, combing it and braiding it like she was twelve again and wrapping her in a sweater.</p><p>It is only the haze of the <em>after, </em>months after Christian is gone in a blaze of fire and fur, does Dani’s mind start to fill in details that are over bright. The barely concealed <em>fuck you</em> look that Amy had shot Christian, the protective sharpness of her posture.</p><p>“Just tell me what to do,” Christian had pleaded, standing awkwardly near a bookshelf. He’d called Amy, at a loss as to who else to call and needing reinforcements. Dani’s unfocused gaze had fixed on the poster above her head, the princess and the bear. The Ativan already starting to work its way through her system, a slow drift to a safer, far off place. Maybe she shouldn’t have washed it down with that glass of stale red wine Christian had given her.</p><p>“Buy two tickets. Or rent a fucking car. Just be present,” Amy had replied, her tone cool at best. “Don’t let her go home alone.”</p><p>In the end, he had gotten on that plane with her, but it had been Amy who had driven back to New York with her. Who had packed up boxes with Dani’s uncle, who had borne the burden of a grief she didn’t understand.</p><p>In the <em>after</em>, it’s Amy who Dani will miss more than she’ll ever miss Christian.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>i.</em>
</p><p>In the beginning, not so terribly long ago there was a girl born with a heart too big for her body. This is, naturally, a metaphor, for any scans would reveal the organ in question to be working hard in her chest, pumping furiously, just the exact size and shape as it ought to be.</p><p>But hearts are funny creatures. They are muscles after all. They work tirelessly and ceaselessly, even when giving up and stopping seems like the best course of action. When the mind begs for the relief of nothing, the heart continues on against all better judgement.</p><p>Now let us go back to the girl, who is our story both now and going forward. This girl was born crying with a fierceness that suggested she knew what was coming and wanted to tell as many as she could. Her arms and legs would flail, her face redden, eyes scrunched up with tears that had not yet come. </p><p>This is Dani, whose lapsed Lutheran parents gave her a name meaning <em>God is my Judge</em>, full of Old World strength and weight. She was a colicky baby, and her mother fretted her way through that first year of her daughter’s life. There was even some discussion as to whether or not she and her husband should put off the planned second child for another year.</p><p>Fate (as well as irregular use of birth control methods) had bigger things in store.One afternoon the young Mrs Ardor had sat on the rim of the bathtub,staring at the little plastic stick, the two pink lines staring back at her. Her hands shaking from fear and exhaustion, and she wondered if she was ready for another child and knowing that she would have to be. She wouldn’t remember how long she had contemplated this question only that she glanced at her gold wristwatch and realised the time. It had been far longer than she had meant it to be, but she hadn’t heard any crying, no gasps or screams. Over the nine months of her bright life, Dani hadn’t yet managed to sleep through the night and the wear of it was starting to show on her poor mother. In her panicked haste, she dropped the test on the floor where it lay half-buried in the shaggy bright pink bathmat until her husband came home.</p><p>She had rushed to her daughter’s room, tears starting to stream down her cheeks as she called her daughter’s name. Fear gripped her heart like a vice and it wouldn’t let go until she knew little Dani was okay. The journey from the bathroom to the small bedroom in reality wasn’t far, but that afternoon it felt like miles.</p><p>Turning the knob, she open the door a bit harder than she meant and it banged against the wall.</p><p>“Dani? Are you okay sweetheart?” She cooed only to freeze two steps inside the door. Dani was more than alright. She was standing, her small body pressed against the white frame of the crib, face tilted up to the window by her bed, a beatific smile as a branch with the first buds of springs tapped against the glass. Turning towards her mother, she babbled and pointed.</p><p>Mrs. Ardor smiled and scooped her daughter up, bringing her closer to the window where the seasons were changing. Perhaps it was all going to be all right after all. After all, what is a rough first year when compared with a lifetime?</p><p>When they brought home Terri six months later, little Dani would escape her own crib and crawl into her sister’s bed, sleeping with her head next to hers. Young as Dani was, something in her knew her sister was something important to her. That family needs to be held.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>ix.</em>
</p><p>Music has always had a special place in Dani’s heart. Dance too. An affection for pageantry and artistry that stems from a lifetime of homemade costumes and childhood productions, songs sung loudly and off-key.</p><p>The sun is bright on her face, warm on her cheeks as she watches the Hårgans — Pelle’s family — weave their circle around the grounds, laughing and smile. Her body sways to the music even as she remains seated. It has its hooks in her, coaxing her to join them. It looks so light and wonderful, like joy and summer incarnate. For the briefest of moments, an extended blink really, Dani lets her eyes drift close and lets it wash over her.A sense of calm that she hasn’t felt in months, possibly years starts to drape itself over her.</p><p>“You guys should join,” Pelle leans closer to her, his tone encouraging, his body language and eyes are on her even though he could very easily be talking to all of them. Instantly she stops moving, a blush starting to creep across her cheeks. She feels caught out, like her longing to give herself up to the music, to be a part of something bigger in a way that she’s not felt in months, in years maybe has been caught out. Blinking furiously, she smiles shakily as she shakes her head. It feels odd to be really seen.</p><p>“Oh no, I’m too scared.” Her hand comes to her cheek, feeling the heat there, fingers sliding towards her mouth as she realises she has leaned towards Pelle, drawing herself away from Christian. Curling her body in momentarily, she tries to grab back hold to that feeling as it flips away and out of her grasp.</p><p>Biting her nails, she looks around, straightening herself up as she tries to slot herself back into the feeling. Her gaze scans the scene again, senses turned more to the music and the chanting than what is happening closer just as Simon returns and hands Connie a beer. For a brief second she notes a strange look that crosses over Ingemar’s face before being replaced by a smile.Dani squints in puzzlement, trying to place if it was there at all or if the light and the music are helping her imagination put things where there weren’t before. She’s probably just projecting. That wouldn’t be surprising.</p><p>Fruitlessly she tries to slip back under the spell of the sun and the music, but it doesn’t work. She’s been woken up now, left unsettled. Peace, no matter how limited or brief it was, will not be so easily won again. Something akin to embarrassment starts to creep in, an ugly cousin to better feelings as Christian declares that he’s going to join them, asking for guidance how. Her mouth opens, a protest dying on her lips as he trots off without so much of a backwards glance, grabbing hands of the dancers and joining the line. She isn’t surprised that he doesn’t ask her thoughts, doesn’t seek permission, but that doesn’t stop the bright pang of hurt.</p><p>An invisible hand twists a knife under her ribs, a flash of anger that she doesn’t know where to direct. Instead she pushes it down. Swallows it whole.</p><p>There is no time to linger on it, for Pelle has inched closer, has grabbed her attention once more. The rush of the drawing of her, the warmth that comes from being remembered, the vivid detail even in the simpleness of the pencil sketch. Her stomach starts to twist, a hollow warmth that she doesn’t want to name even though she can.</p><p>It’s been so long since she’s been seen. Since someone has noticed her as Dani, alone, not a woman with too much baggage, too many tears.</p><p>It's nice, but it feels like a betrayal.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>ii.</em>
</p><p>Eight years old and being gently rocked in the small fishing boat, barely more than a rowboat with a single prop motor. Her father had woken her up before dawn, her excitement of this precious father-daughter time enough to propel her through the motions of gearing up, of slathering on sunscreen and bug spray in the dark, in wearing boots that go up to her knees, meant to keep the leeches from grabbing onto her skin as she helps load the boat.</p><p>Terri had wanted to come too, but when her father had tried to wake her, the seven year old had burrowed further into her sleeping bag, making the ancient springs of the bunk bed in the cabin squeak as she fled from the light. They both let her sleep.</p><p>Hours of sitting there in the boat, not saying much, just listening to the soft hooting of the loons, the splash of a fish tail on the surface of the water. Absorbing the comfort of her father’s presence, the act of being together without needing to vocalise anything. Dani might be young, but she’s old enough to know that moments like these will become harder to find in the coming years. That this is something precious to be preserved.</p><p>The ritual of the casting off the line into the water, the whir of the line off the wheel.</p><p>“Patience,” her dad had told her when she’d first learned to fish, and what he repeated that morning. “Patience and feeling. That’s how you catch a fish.”</p><p>Heart forward, her body melting into the motions of the lake, feeling the sun on her skin, hearing the buzzing of the dragonflies, the soft hooting of a loon as it dives.</p><p>They are out there for hours. It could be days. Time blurs and it in the end, Dani has three fish, golden and green, wiggly and squirming around in the cooler of water that’s been brought along to be their temporary cage. Her father takes them back to shore, Dani sitting at the prow, her bright orange life vest making her a beacon in the midday sun. She hops out of the boat at the dock, ties with knots that she’d practiced until her hands bled, until they were perfect. Strong enough to weather a storm, but not so tight to not be undone.</p><p>Dani proudly helps to lug the cooler back up the dock, towards the picnic tables that no one really picnics on. In reality her father does most of the work, letting out a long whistle, the kind that requires fingers between teeth to get the sound just right. Right on cue, Terri comes scampering down from the cabin, taking the flagstone steps two at a time, their mother watching from the door. They must have both been waiting or Dani’s dad has kept a better track of the time than Dani herself has.</p><p>Terri leaps over the boulders that mark the barrier of the grass and beach, moving with the effortless gracelessness that only seven year olds really have. The little girl moves as if she’s making up for lost time, eager to take part in the shared experience that she had brushed off hours earlier. Terri settles onto the bench of the picnic table just as their father sets the cooler on the opposite one, setting the tackle box beside it.</p><p>“Wait here,” he instructs both girls before walking up to the house, gathering the rest of the supplies, including a cutting board and a bucket. While he is gone, Terri moves to sit next to the cooler with the fish, prying the lid off and peering within.</p><p>“They’re bigger than I thought,” she comments, tilting her head to the side. “Uglier too.”</p><p>“I think they’re pretty,” Dani remarks, sitting down to pull off the galoshes, her shins slick with sweat.</p><p>“How many did you catch?”</p><p>“Three.”</p><p>Terri makes a small noise, letting the lid drop back down with a soft thump. “I’d have gotten four. To match our family.”</p><p>Dani doesn’t have time to tell her sister that their father caught two of his own, that he threw back at least three to make room for Dani’s own. That it isn’t a competition. There isn’t a prize for getting the most fish. It’s all part of the same squabbles that siblings often have, trivial little things that cycle round and round. It would’ve ruined everything to start one now. Today has been too wonderful to have it end on her fatter banishing both of them from it.</p><p>Her father sets the cutting board down, the bucket positioned on the bench so that it will catch any run off. With practiced hands, he unrolls the oil cloth that has a set of knives contained within. Dani’s seen these knives before. She knows what comes next.</p><p>“Dani, come here,” he gently, but firmly instructs her, gesturing for her stand in front of him as he pulls out the biggest knife, curved and coming to a sharp point. The wood handle is worn shiny and smooth, giving away its age. The thin blade glints in the sunlight as he hands to her and she takes it with care.</p><p>“Now, you must be sure and you have to be quick. Hesitation leads to suffering,” her father instructs as a he takes fish from the cooler. It moves a bit, but the fight as drained from it. He sets it down on the cutting board, stomach exposed to the sky. Gesturing the line, from the just below the lower fins up to the tail. “Steady and quick.”</p><p>“Ew! I can’t watch,” Terri squeals, jumping off the bench, hands over her ears as if the fish might scream.</p><p>“Okay,” Dani nods, putting her hand over the fish’s head, not thinking about the gills moving uselessly. Silently she thanks the fish, apologises for what she is about to do, swears that it will be quick. Deep breath in as she places the tip of the knife against the scales. Exhaling, she applies the pressure and quickly makes the cut, flesh giving away easily, steady and sure. It wasn’t hard or as scary as she might have thought. It just felt right.</p><p>“Beautiful, Dani. Perfect,” her father praises and she grins from ear to ear as she looks up at her father, smiling back at her.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>x. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Sharp breathes. Hard in. Rasping out. Her diaphragm is working overtime, but it doesn’t seem to remember how to properly do its job.</p><p>
  <em>In, out. In, out.</em>
</p><p>Dani is afraid to look down. Her heart is hammering away; it might even be visible through her ribs. <em>In, out. In, out.</em> <em>Thump thump thump.</em> Her limbs are shaking, adrenaline surging, but she can’t stop looking. Can’t tear her eyes away.</p><p>Then all of the air is sucked from her lungs, mouth opening in a scream that might or might not come out. She can’t tell. An entire body flinch courses through her, but she stares on.Part of her is no longer tethered to her body. She might as well be up there on the cliff, ready to leap off of it with Dan. Is this time going to be better or worse because she knows what to expect?</p><p>Disassociation. By naming it Dani tries to render it powerless, tries to pull herself in. But it is safer in the clouds, safer away from the anger and the pain, the shock of the betrayal because Pelle knew and said nothing. No one told her. No one prepared her for this.</p><p>The rational part of her mind that still lingers in the liminal space between her body and where the rest of her is, says that nothing could prepare her. Trauma doesn’t wait for when a person is ready. Triggers can be anything, even the seemingly unrelated. It doesn’t take any amount of coursework to see how <em>this</em>, this Ättestupan is related. It is as clear as the endless day.</p><p>Sand itches her eyes, her blinking slowed to nothingness as the man jumps. The sound of his body hitting the rocks, the moans that show he still lives, the crush of the hammers making meat of his body.None of it fully penetrates, a spell has been cast over her and she’s being carried away on the wind. She briefly sees the man and the woman, up on the rocks,far from their bodies. <em>A blink</em>. They’re gone; her parents, her sister, stand there now. <em>Another blink.</em></p><p>
  <em>In, out. In, out.</em>
</p><p>All that remains is sand and sky, Dani’s body moving like a puppet with its strings cut. She doesn’t want to come back to it. Not yet. Maybe never. But she does and it’s a harder fall that she imagined.</p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>iv.</em>
</p><p>A dream:</p><p> </p><p>“Kiss me,” she whispers, head tilted up in the dark. There is just enough light for them be cast in shadows, just enough noise that they don’t really need to whisper to not be overheard, but she does anyways.</p><p>A hand, firm and solid grips her waist while another gently cups her cheek. His thumb strokes a line across her cheekbone gently. He gazes at her like a marvel. Even in the dark, she swears she can make out the bright blue of his eyes. A beacon calling her home.</p><p>He leans in, breath warm on her cheeks. “I wish I could hold you,” his mouth is so close, yet so far, tongue turning non-native vowels and consonants into a song.</p><p>“You <em>are</em> holding me,” the dream version of her replies, words almost whined as she curls her hand into his t-shirt.</p><p>He shakes his head faintly, nose brushing against hers. “No, not in the way you deserve. But soon. Soon, my Dani.”</p><p>Then he does kiss her, with a fierceness that feels protective, feels safe. That engulfs as she moulds her body against his, not caring who sees, her mind a world away from her boyfriend on the other side of the room. In this dream, there is only the rightness of this. The power of being held by this man, in this moment.</p><p>When she wakes the next morning, the details slip away, melting into the shadows of morning, lingering in the thudding of her heart, the slick damp between her legs that has nothing to do with the softly snoring man besides her.A lingering wish clings in the space beneath her heart, a question that she can’t answer, an ache for a product of her subconscious.</p><p>She wishes he were real, but for now Dani will take comfort in the absence of nightmares. Will savour every appearance like she’s starving and this dream man is her only sustenance. In a seminar she took during undergrad, her professor spoke at length about the importance of dream analysis, of how sleep is when the subconscious mind processes what the conscious mind cannot. How to conduct an analysis, writing down the associations of key elements, each deeply personal. There is no symbology, nothing divine. Even nightmares can provide brilliant illumination. <em>Write them down</em>, her professor urged, <em>write what you remember and decode it. Even what seems harmful can provide hope.</em></p><p>Dani tries this reproach after the third or fourth occurrence, but the details slip away like water she’s tried to scoop up with her hands. The light of morning (or the streetlights when she wakes flushed and panting at 3AM) burns clarity away, leaving only the ghost of sensation.</p><p>No matter how many dreams occur, no matter how many fevered touches, or gasping kisses, intense gazes from the bright summer blue of his eyes, her mind never gives him a name. He never becomes real enough for one. </p><p>There might be something worth analysing in that. In the end, it only breaks a secret part of her heart.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>xiii.</em>
</p><p>Ash fills her nose, scents of roasting meat pushes past the flowers that close around her. Her mouth waters reflexively, even if she feels no real hunger.All she feels in light and pain, a release unlike any she’d felt before. Dani rationally knows what a break with reality is meant to look like, how to diagnose it, what to do. She’s done the internship, taken the courses, watched it happen to Terri at least twice.</p><p>This isn’t a break. Not in the way that can be defined by a DSM and a careful eye. This is a breaking open, a cage that she hadn’t realised was surrounding her has been battered open. Her life has been defined by trauma for so long that she had a hard time remembering who she was without it.</p><p>Now she remembers that she was once a girl who loved, who could name constellations and wove daisy chains. Who breathed the air and could name the flowers on it. Some of those scents are with her now, each flower having a name and a meaning. She feels rooted even as she moves, carried aloft and held firm.</p><p>Dani loves it all as she pulls her hands to her chest under the robe, holding them to her heart as she watches the flames climb higher.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p><em>iii.</em> </p><p> </p><p>It was a lifetime ago that she met Christian. The weather had been that uncomfortable sort of humid heat that only New York City can deliver in early June. She’s grown up in the slow creep of summer, of spring lingering as long as possible before the warmth of summer settles in, stretching out like a cat to bask in the sun. Minnesota summers have their own feel, even the humidity from all the lakes and greenery is muted. Smells of pine and cut grass, of popsicles that have never met the fruit they’re supposedly flavoured with.</p><p>Homesickness is what led to her tentatively accepting the invite from her new roommate to come to this party. It’s silly to feel homesick after a week and a half, but she moved here three months early for a reason. She didn’t want to be languishing in worry and regret about moving, thinking of other programs closer to home that she could’ve chosen instead while trying to get her footing in the start of the semester.</p><p>Even semesters feels odd, an adjustment to go back to after four years of trimesters. But it is safe to come here. Things are going well at home, Terri’s back on medication again and this time the combination seems to be working. They’re grounding her without what Terri calls that “awful zombie feeling” which she’s used as a reason to go off her meds in the past. Her sister is making plans again, following through on them, no longer lapsing into silences that last for days. She’s enrolled in a summer art course, has plans to visit Dani in August before starting the semester at Minnesota. Earlier in the evening, she’d been texting her links to apartments she’d found, little efficiencies near the West Bank that are reasonable and affordable and cute.Her sister seems hopeful, but not manic. These are <em>good</em> things, but Dani still finds herself biting her lips until they bleed while she reads them.</p><p>So when her roommate knocks on the frame of her open door, jolting Dani back to the moment after she’s drifting into thinking about her sister while she sorts through a half un-packed moving box.</p><p>“Come on,” Talia says, extending an encouraging hand and helping Dani to her feet. “Let’s get you out and meeting some people. That can wait until tomorrow.”</p><p>Awkwardly, Dani shifts her weight from foot to foot before walking over to her desk and starting to shift papers around. Her mind is hunting for excuses, but nothing strong enough is coming up. “Thanks, but I’m not in the mood to go, erm, bar-hopping?”</p><p>Talia laughs, loudly and openly, waving a hand as if to brush that whole train of thought away. Her laugh is infectious enough to bring out one of Dani’s own, a quieter echo. “I never said we were going to do that. There’s a party being thrown by a couple of other humanities grad students. It could be incredibly lame, but hey, who’s going to say no to cheaper booze in this city?”</p><p>Dani finds herself smiling at the though, nodding in agreement. The price of everything here is giving her a case of sticker shock. Not worrying about paying $14 for a glass of beer on tap, knowing it’s the cheapest, would be nice.</p><p>“Okay, true. I’ll come on.”</p><p>“Atta girl, now put on some red lipstick and maybe some real pants and we’ll head.”</p><p> </p><p>The music at the party is terrible, someone’s iTunes has been left on shuffle without any restrictions. It bounces around genres and tempos, without any rhyme or reason.</p><p>“So when are you gonna go out with me?” A lanky guy holding a red solo cup asks Talia, crowding into her space. Talia rolls her eyes, giving him a once over as she casually tosses her box braids over her shoulder.</p><p>“When you finally have something interesting to say,” she tells him breezily before turning her attention to Dani again. “I’ll go get us something to drink. Try to relax.Find the DJ and tell him his music sucks.”</p><p>Dani laughs, nodding her head. Her hand lifts to give an awkward sort of wave before she knots her fingers together to stop herself, watching Talia head towards the kitchen area, the tall guy following her, still trying his hardest. “Come on, you know you’d have fun.”</p><p>Surveying the rest of the party, Dani figures out that most of the attendees are either grad students like herself or in that particular class of underemployed that still has the energy to party on a Thursday night. She starts to bite her lower lip, a nervous habit, but stops at the waxy sensation of her lipstick. She’d forgotten she was wearing any and now probably has some on her teeth. She hopes no one tries to talk to her before Talia gets back.</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>Her attention is pulled by a guy in simple tee shirt and cargo shorts. He’s handsome, all reddish brown hair and blue eyes, a warm relaxed smile on his face. He also has a cup in his hand, the contents too dark to be beer.</p><p>He looks nice. He looks <em>good</em>, in a kind of goodness that feels safe. A few days worth of gingery stubble grows on his chin and when he smiles, Dani finds herself matching. “Hey,” she answers.</p><p>“We’ve not met, I’m Christian. Can I, uh, get you something to drink?”</p><p>“My friend, Talia,” Dani points in the direction of Talia who seems to have gotten distracted by the first guy, her hand on her hip and a bemused smile on her face. “She’s supposed to be getting me a drink, but I think she’s forgotten.”</p><p>Dani laughs nervously, looking back at the guy — Christian — who has also been watching them. “Looks like. Mark’s been trying to get her to go out with him for like a year now. I don’t know why he hasn’t given up.”</p><p>“Maybe it’s how they flirt,” she answers with a little shrug. “It could be their thing. I’m Dani by the way.”</p><p>“Dani. Nice to meet you, Dani.” She likes the way he says her name, the care he repeats it back to her.</p><p>In the end Christian gets her drink, and her second. They talk through most of the party and when he asks for her number, she gives it to him. She doesn’t really think he’ll call, the past few years have made her a bit of a pessimist.</p><p>He asks her out two days later and she starts to think she judged the world too harshly. There’s goodness left in it.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>xvi.</em>
</p><p>Two photos, nearly identical except for the faces of the girls portrayed within them, once hung side by side on the wall along the staircase. Even the faces are more similar than just the blonde hair, fair skin, clearly showing sisters. Each girl is dressed in white, wide red ribbons around their waists, crowned in holly and berries, candles bright and burning. Neither girl can be much older than 12. Taken a year apart over a decade ago, it is amazing how many shades of the future are on display. The newer shows a girl with a longer face, serious even with her over bright smile, chin lifted in a fierce pride, brown eyes determined. This little girl knows her own loud mind, but is unaware of how badly it will betray her in the coming years. The older photo has a girl with eyes that look greener against the holly and flame, face heart shaped, smile a little shy though she’s clearly pleased, a happy sureness radiating off her, all warmth and light.</p><p>Both of these photos sit in a box now, packed in along with other mementos and pieces of a family now separated by more than miles in a storage unit near Blaine.</p><p>In four years the autopay will be turned off, the boxes picked over by relatives of those lost. This particular box, with these photos will be moved to a basement of the girls’ aunt, waiting for their owner to claim them.</p><p>Dani answers the email when it comes, almost a ghost.</p><p>
  <em>Thank you for writing, I’m coming to get them.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>v.</em>
</p><p>On a Tuesday in early September, Dani finally gets a name for the ghost of her dreams. It’s six months since they’ve started, the frequency of them increasing as she crept closer to her birthday. On the morning of her twenty-fifth birthday, she had woken with a face in the forefront of her mind, a man with curling brown hair and eyes so blue it makes her miss Minnesota. In her sleepy state, she smiles half-lidded at him, her mind not awake enough to grasp that he isn’t there.</p><p>Then her phone chirps a notification, breaking the spell. In blinking the sleep from her eyes, she blinks him away too.</p><p>That Tuesday, the weather briefly decides to play along with autumn just enough that Dani can drag one of her well-loved cardigans, dark forest green with patches on the elbows, out of the back of her wardrobe. She holds it close to her chest, inhaling the cedar smell of the mothballs from the wool, taken back to her childhood for a brief moment.She slips it on over a simple oversized tank top and leggings and goes about her day. For once her mind is settled in the present, living in New York and all that she has to do here rather than a thousand miles away, caught up in what ifs.</p><p>The meeting with her advisor runs over, both of them getting caught up in a discussion of research methods and types of observational data that she should look into using for her thesis. There’s talk of Dani applying for one of the research fellowships for next summer. Its the kind of position that leads to her name being included on publications, both useful and good for bolstering her future career. It’s good to have that kind of reputation her advisor encourages, even if she only ever does clinical work and never pursue academia. Dani’s incredibly flattered, her cheeks pinking in joy before she catches sight of the ancient digital clock one of the bookshelves.</p><p>“Is that clock right?” She asks, checking her phone to be certain,. Both her professor and her phone confirm it is. Dani’s late. She was supposed to meet Christian fifteen minutes ago, Hastily she shoves her notebook in her bag, makes her apologies and bolts out the door.</p><p>“Shit, shit,” she mutters to herself, hastily shooting off an apology text to Christian as she double checks the address. It’s one of those mixers for grad students and some of the faculty, the kind that are supposed to be casual but aren’t really, despite being held in the back room of a bar near campus. It’s the sort of thing that Dani hates going to, not because the people are unfriendly. They’re perfectly nice and she can trade gentle barbs with them about psychology versus anthropology and have a pleasant time. No, it’s the fact that Christian always seems a little irritated by her presence, even as he insists she come along.</p><p>She’s out of breath from rushing when she gets there, the hair at the nap of her neck curling from sweat and exertion. Pulling a hair tie off her wrist, she twists her hair up into a messy bun and secures it as she makes her way between tables to the back room. She spots Christian at the far side of the room, talking with Josh and some guy whose back is turned to her. Making a quick stop at the small make shift bar, she gets herself a short glass of red wine, offering up hellos to those people she knows as she winds between people.</p><p>Sliding up to Christian, she lifts onto the balls of her feet to plant a kiss on his cheek in greeting. “Hi, sorry I’m late.”</p><p>A frown creases between Christian’s eyebrows for a moment, lips turning downward for a moment.He looks ready to criticise her, but she jumps in front of it to save herself. “I sent a text,” she offers. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>Seeming to catch himself, Christian rolls his shoulders back, shaking his head and smiling slightly. “No worries. Josh and I were just talking to one of the new guys. Dani, this is Pelle. Pelle, this is my girlfriend, Dani.”</p><p>“Hey Josh,” she offers Josh a bright smile, before turning to look at the new guy.</p><p>Her heart starts to beat double time, palms going sweaty as she blinks in surprise. She knows him. This is the first time hearing his name, but she knows him. The soft brown hair, the sky blue eyes, the smile through the beard. Everything.</p><p>Dani realises that she might be staring, her eyes fixed on his. This is just a case of deja vu. It’s nothing. She puts her hand out to shake his. A professional gesture, forcing distance even as she longs for connection.</p><p>Dani feels her cheeks warm, stomach flipping over in a not entirely unpleasant way as she makes eye contact. There is something in his gaze that speaks her too, that answers a question she hadn’t realised she’d been asking.</p><p>
  <em>I know you too. I’ve been waiting for you.</em>
</p><p>A gasp escapes her, a jolt firing across all of her nerves making her spill her drink, the cheap red wine splattering across the front of her camisole, on her ballet flats and onto the floor.</p><p>“Oh, I’m such a klutz. I’m so sorry. Excuse me,” she begs, hastily setting the now empty cup onto a nearby table. Fumbling she looks around for something to clean herself up, but her arms don’t seem to be moving the way that she wants them too. Every motion is coming out wrong.</p><p>“Here, let me help you,” Pelle materialises beside her, holding out a small stack of cocktail napkins which she stares at for a moment, gaze fixed on his hands, before she takes them.</p><p>“Thank you, but I’m fine, really. I didn’t get any on you, did I?”</p><p>“You okay babe?” Christian asks, a minute too late. She turns, cheeks still flaming and beams brightly at him.</p><p>“Yep. I’m fine. I’m so sorry, I’ll be right back. Let me just—“ she doesn’t even finish the statement before rushing to the bathroom. The fluorescent light buzzes overhead, as she grabs a paper towel, running it under the cold tap, blotting it against the fabric. After most of the damage seems to be undone, she takes to blotting the cold water against her still hot cheeks.</p><p>“It’s just deja vu. It is the senses and memory getting into alignment. That’s all it is. There is nothing to this,” she repeats to her reflection, taking deep breathes until the redness starts to leave her cheeks.</p><p>Carefully she buttons her sweater up over her camisole, discarding the artful bohemian style for one more put together. Her fingers are shaking as she buttons the top button, holding herself in.</p><p>“What was all that earlier?” Christian asks as they’re leaving the party, heading to a late dinner that he will leave early. For now he’s show more interest than he has in a while and Dani grasps at it like it is a lifeline.</p><p>“Nothing. Too much coffee, I guess,” she answers with a dry smile and a laugh that isn’t as light as she wants it to be.</p><p>That night she dreams of Pelle again. In the morning, she remembers everything and wishes that she didn’t.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>xi.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Does he feel like home to you?”</p><p>How deceptive a question. How wrong and intrusive for Pelle to ask her. Dani looks down at their hands, interlaced. She doesn’t remember grabbing them, but she can feel the roughness of his calluses, the strength in the long bones of his fingers. Solid and real, holding, but not clinging. It would be easy to break away from his touch, but she doesn’t.</p><p><em>No.</em> She wants to answer. <em>No he doesn’t. </em>She doesn’t even know what home feels like anymore. Her childhood home felt like an alien place, a war zone of quiet destruction for years. On holidays and long trips, during that summer that Dani came home and worked at a nearby clinic to gain practical experience without being too far, she had seen it in the eyes of her parents at the table. She had known her own face mirrored theirs. Exhaustion. Worry, fatigue, a smattering of hope that is quickly being worn away. That whole summer Terri had slept sixteen hours a day, coming home just after breakfast with her feet muddy from walking out in the nearby woods.</p><p>Christian had only visited once, before making an excuse as to why it was better that she come to him and Dani had gone, guilty eager to flee from the open wound her former safe space had become.</p><p>Lifting her eyes from their hands, she locks eyes with Pelle and sees that he already knows her answer. That he knows she can’t describe her home anymore, that she can’t place it on a map. In his eyes she sees any offering, a chance to have a home, to be held whatever that means.</p><p>“Stay, Dani, please.”</p><p>For a moment she wishes she could hug him, that it wouldn’t be weird. That it would be crossing a boundary. She gives him a watery smile and pulls her hands away, wiping her eyes as she nods, taking refuge in his offer.</p><p>It’s only a few more days. Maybe the memory of them will keep sustain her when she has to go back.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>vi.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>They weren’t always like this. </p><p>The beginning was sweet, boring and uneventful. Concerts in the park, excursions to the outer boroughs, sharing $3 packets of dumplings in Chinatown, heading over to Queens for Indian food, laughing and making their own shared jokes. They take day trips, the engine of Christian’s ancient Geo stopping and going at the worst of times, but the tension isn’t there yet to make it bigger than it is. </p><p>But even a perfect apple can be rotting from the inside out, flesh going brown and mealy, drying out while still looking unblemished. They each strike their own blows. She overhears his father lecturing him about his thesis, about <em>goals</em> and <em>expectations</em>, how Christian should be making moves towards his future, what his line of research and inquiry will be.</p><p>“Being a Hughes alone isn’t going to secure you a adjunct professorship unless you have a dissertation and a post-doc to match. Pick an angle of inquiry and actually follow through for once. I don’t know how much longer anyone can wait.” Dani can hear the anger and disappointment in the elder Dr. Hughes’ voice from the study, loud even through the wood of the door. She’s stopped in the hallway, on her way back to the kitchen from the bathroom. Frozen in place, she doesn’t know what to do. It’s too late to move when the door opens and Dr. Hughes strides out, glasses perched on his nose, dark red sweater complementing the eyes he shares with his son.</p><p>“Oh, good evening Danielle,” he greets her warmly. It’s the first holiday that she’s spent with Christian’s family and Dani briefly cringes at the name.</p><p>“It’s just Dani,” she corrects gently, but she can tell he isn’t listening as he pats her on the shoulder before turning and walking back down the hall.She watches his retreating back before cautiously stepping towards the study, finding Christian standing before a pair of massive desks (one for each of the DoctorsHughes) looking like a bomb went off around him.</p><p>“Are you okay? What can I do?” She offers, feeling the rounded pain radiating off of him. The hurt, the disappointment in himself. Or maybe she’s just projecting what she would feel if the situations were reversed. Carefully she places her hand on his forearm, leaning towards him.</p><p>Christian flinches away. “Nothing. It’s fine babe, lets go eat some pie.”</p><p>He doesn’t look behind him as he leaves the room, doesn’t wait for her to join him. Dani simply stands in the ruins of his family drama and wonders what she got wrong. Christian must sense he did something wrong because he tries to make it up to her later that night and it doesn’t work as it should. That’s when she really starts to pretend she can will it whole once more.</p><p>They will be together for three more years, but they will never truly be whole.</p><p> </p><p>Towards the end, they are both clinging. Two people on a capsized boat, sharks circling, but holding on because the alternative seems unbearable. Neither Dani nor Christian can see the strength in letting the other go. The longer and tighter they hold on, using each other as a crutch to avoid bigger pains, scarier things (her family, unraveling; his lack of purpose and the weight of familial expectation, crushing), the more the good memories get tainted. Nothing looks good anymore. Maybe it was always broken.</p><p>On her back in his bed, Dani can see the moon peeking through the grates of the fire escape. It’s glow is wan despite its fullness, trapped behind bars and glass, hanging over a city that never stops properly looks up. Christian’s heavy breath is on her neck, rote grunts of her name in her ear.</p><p>"You’re so good, babe. So hot, so tight. I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming.”</p><p>She moves her hips reflexively, trying to pull herself back down into her body, trying to not feel as trapped as the moon looks.</p><p>“Keep going,” she croaks, wrapping her arms tighter around his back, holding him closer, using him as an anchor. How long as it been since she said anything tonight? Did he notice? Did he even care?</p><p>A moan, higher than her involuntary ones, is forced out. Christian takes his as positive encouragement and moves his head to kiss her mouth. He misses. She tries to not take it personally.</p><p>Squeezing her eyes shut, she pushes her thoughts toward her body. Her nipples against the hair on his chest, the softness of his body against the softness of hers. The cotton sheets against her back. Sweat beading behind her ears. Her mind, desperate for something to encourage the right reaction from her body, conjures up a pair of eyes. Blue, like Christian’s, but the shade is wrong. They’e looking at her, gazing like she’s the most fascinating thing in the world rather than looking just past her. Her pulse quickens, this time the moan is a softer, rougher sound. Her hand slides up Christian’s neck, tangling in the hair on the nape, her mind imagining it longer, browner, wavier. The shape of her name changes, vowels and consonants losing their flat American drawl. The body on top of her lengthens, planes hardening. She feels herself loosening up, relaxing slightly as she inches towards where she’s been pretending to be for the last twenty minutes</p><p><em>“My Dani, my queen,” </em>she hears in her mind and her lips part in a breathy sigh.</p><p>The movements don’t work. Harsh, fevered pushing and pulling, back and forth like she’s being jackhammered feel at odds with the man she’s layering over her boyfriend. This isn’t how it would be. Pelle would never let her drift so far from her body, from their bodies in the first place.</p><p>
  <em>Pelle.</em>
</p><p>Dani’s eyes fly open, an accidentally well-timed gasp escapes her. She hadn’t meant to name him, hadn’t meant to bring the real man who she saw in the living room of this very apartment two days ago into this bed right now. Her body stiffens, going rigid under Christian who moans and goes rigid on his own, reaching his climax without noticing that she’s no longer playing along. He pulls out and half collapses on top of her, arm draped over her waist. Eyes at half-mast, he asks her a murmured question. It takes her a moment to realize what it was.</p><p>"Yeah, yeah, it was good this time. I promise,” she answers, biting her lip and nodding furiously. No good can come from telling him why. She feels oddly dirty as is, like she’s cheated or betrayed him when that clearly isn’t the case.</p><p>“Good,” he answers with a sleepy smile, planting a kiss on her temple before rolling over and grabbing a tissue and sliding the condom off. He tosses it towards the trash bin, failing to notice when it misses the mark by about a foot. In a few hours, he will step on it blindly while stumbling toward the bathroom and for a brief second, his mind will blame Dani before he forcibly corrects himself. It was just a mistake in the dark.</p><p>Now though, Dani curls onto her side, gaze back towards the window. The moon is gone now, hidden behind clouds. Christian slips beside her, curling around her and holding her a little too tightly. It lasts five minutes before he rolls away from her in his sleep, sprawling across the majority of the full size bed while she remains awake on her side, holding her arms tights to her chest, knuckles white against the dark grey sheets, reminding herself that she is not alone.</p><p><em>I love him. I love him. I love him. </em>She repeats it until she falls asleep.</p><p>Once upon a time that used to be true.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>viii.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“At least we don’t have to make any connections.”</p><p>“Yeah, but it’s New Jersey, everyone knows New Jersey sucks dick.”</p><p>“I don’t think that’s true. Besides this is Newark, it hardly counts as New Jersey.”</p><p>“Whatever man, it’s still Jersey.”</p><p>Turning away from Mark and Josh and their bickering, Dani returns to looking out the window. Her knees tucked to her chest, shoes pressed against the vinyl seat cushion as she watches planes coming and going. It’s the sort of thing she would do as a kid, making up stories about the various destinations with Terri as they waited for their turn to get on board. Her throat tightens at the memory. She wishes Christian would hurry back with the waters he said he’d get.Taking a deep inhale through her teeth, she pulls her gaze away from the window, scanning the terminal for him.</p><p>He’s not there.</p><p>Pelle is seated across from her, sketch book on his lap, the outline of plane taking shape. The pencil is still in his hand, but his eyes are on her now.</p><p>“I was just looking for Christian. My throats a little dry, all the recycled air you know,” she jokes limply, wondering if it’s too early to take a sleeping pill.He nods understandingly.</p><p>“It is very dry,” he answers with a faint smile. Dani swallows thickly and tries to muster up one of her own. She could dry swallow a pill if she had to, but she doesn’t really want to.</p><p>“Are you excited to be going home?” She asks instead, eager to get her mind off her sister, off the plane ride.</p><p>Pelle nods again, closing his notebook and tucking it away. “Very. I’m very excited we’re going home.” He pulls out a reusable water bottle, the kind with its own little cup on the cap. She hadn’t noticed him stop to fill it. “Here, have a little. I haven’t used it yet,” he offers it to her, and she’s desperate enough to take it even as she gives her objections.</p><p>Once small glass of water and she already feels better. Dani has only just handed it back to Pelle, thanked him again when Christian comes back with a Hudson News bag full of too much stuff.</p><p>It never once occurs to her that its strange how easily Pelle said <em>we.</em></p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>xii.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Blood is singing in her ears. Her blood, the rhythmic bounce and sway of it matching the music that is playing. Round and round she goes, spinning and turning, bent and swaying, then stop. Laughter as she continues, always on her feet, each movement easier, each step coming faster as she realises that perhaps she knew the motions all along.</p><p>“Sister,” they call her as they drape her in flowers. “May Queen,” they sing as they crown her, hold her, bring her close. Name her as part of the family and she believes it. No, she <em>knows</em> it to be true. Even in the confusion and the haze of drugs and adrenaline, it feels so very true. As they push her along, she sees her mother, dressed to match her, belonging as part of this bigger family and her heart does a little twitch.</p><p>“Mom?” She’s half crying, but no tears streak down her cheeks. “Dani!” Turning her head, she smiles, relieved by the sight of Pelle coming closer.</p><p>“May Queen, wow,” he enthuses as he cups her cheeks, pressing a firm kiss to her mouth.</p><p>The taste of his lips is a memory, a song she missed. It’s better than she dreamed of, all sun and cinnamon and something earthy. She leans towards it, sighing as he bites her lower lip before pulling away. A mewl of disappointment escapes her, but then he is gone too, swallowed by their family. She wants him back by her side.</p><p>But then the sun is lowered before her and she takes that next step without much hesitation. The rightness of it carries her along.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p><br/>
<em>xv.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>And then she falls.</p><p>The love and the lust, the anger and the hurt having burned right out of her, gone up in flames with the temple. People are moaning, screaming and crying, but no screams erupt from her. Her heartbeat is a steady thrum in her chest. All of her feelings are out there now, being felt by the family around her. All that remains is a cool acceptance, even as the warmth of the flames and the sun make her sweat through her linen shift.</p><p>A soft, hysterical laugh escapes her as she falls, the robe of flowers cushioning the blow. Like a turtle she falls and knows that she cannot get up on her own. The spell of her old life is breaking, flaking away as the ash is carried into the wind.</p><p>Her smile is soft, no longer the strange tilt of madness, but something that suits a fairy tale heroine, her chest rising and falling as the screams die down around her, just the crackling of flames on the wind.</p><p>Ash is coming down like snow, not enough to turn the world to white, but enough to quiet, enough to distract.</p><p>A sigh escapes Dani. Then a laugh as a shadow blots the sun.</p><p>“Hello, my moon,” she greets, words slurring, her smile lopsided.</p><p>Pelle smiles back at her and holds out his hand.</p><p>This time she remembers taking it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. but he cannot fail</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>xii.</em>
</p><p>Noise.</p><p>It’s all noise.</p><p>Even before the shouting starts, the screaming and the rending of clothes, past the singing and the small fly buzzing in his ear, there is so much noise, the sound of the world holding its breath, about to start anew. The hair on his arms stands on end, prickling with anticipation. A fern leaf scratches against his cheek, but he doesn’t pay attention. He has done his part, he carried Connie into the temple. He delivered three new bloods for this. He brought a queen. He lost something in all of this as well, but right now there is just the sun on his face, the air is lungs, long grass against his calves. But there is something missing.</p><p>He could find her even if she wasn’t bedecked in jewel toned flowers, crowned and honoured even if the field. A bright, shining thing and even as the torches are carried forward, his eyes keep drifting from the temple towards her. Straining to hear without taking a step closer.</p><p>He just wants to hear one thing through the fray, through the songs, through the chorus that grows louder and louder, welcoming until everything is being burned away. One thing, but it feels like too much to ask.</p><p>Pelle just wants to hear her heart beating, like a bird flapping its wings against a cage. He wants to hear that it is alright when the cage gives away, when freedom is within reach.</p><p>Tell him, dear heart, precious Dani, are you ready to be free?</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p><em>iii</em>.</p><p>A boy sits cold in the dark and snow.</p><p>Flakes flutter down, burying the world in quiet.</p><p>He is eight years old, will be nine in six weeks’ time. He is surrounded by his family, but he feels alone. There is only so many tears a body can hold, only so much grief that can be let out before a hollowed out feeling settles in. It had been an accident, something unforeseen. A fire that caught suddenly, burned too bright and too hot to escape. Not for those sleeping so close to the source. The shouts of the adults, running for hoses and pumps, the crack of burning, breaking beams had woken Pelle too late. It might not have been them that woke him, but the smell of smoke, a screaming shout that rent through his dreams.</p><p>That was a week ago.</p><p>His left hand is bandaged from where he grabbed the doorframe, having slipped free of one of his mothers’ embrace, heedless of the danger to himself. In the dark of that night, the fear of losing his parents, of them disappearing into the great cycle two seasons of their life early, of him not getting to say good bye had overrun his sense of self preservation. Standing there and watching, crying out as he hoped to for them to emerge from the building. He couldn’t passively wait, but rather had to take an action. If they would not come out to him, if they couldn’t, then he would go get them.</p><p>Pulling his knees to his chest, Pelle works hard to ignore the sound from the hall behind him, the cold damp wicking through the seat of his pants from the rock he’s perched on. He’s staring at the remains of the building, where he imagines he still can see smoke rising up through the late season snowfall. Right now the noise is overwhelming, even in its blandness. The sounds of lives continuing to be lived, the passage of time. Pelle knows the taste of collective grief, the welcome of loss and relief that comes when elders turn seventy-two and given themselves over to the next beginning.</p><p>This was an ill-timed joining. He does not want to go on, does not want to be held by anyone other than his birth mother, cajoled by any one other than his birth father. But Tove and Gunnar will never do those things again, not in this life. When they return they will be different, if they can return at all.</p><p>He wants them back as they are. As they were, before the smoke filled their lungs, the flames collapsing the building down around them. Though he has not been told directly, Pelle has heard how they were found, holding to one another. A beam had fallen and trapped them in their room in the workers’ house. At some point they must have realized that escape was impossible, that shouting to be saved would put more in harms’ way. So they had surrendered and waited.</p><p>Part of Pelle hates them for it. Hates that they had trusted the All Mother and the All-Father. Hates that they didn’t try to get out for him.</p><p>“He’s out here.” Pelle hears Ingemar call out behind him. His back stiffens momentarily, like he has been caught doing something he shouldn’t be. Perhaps he has been. His parents aren’t in that ash. Their bodies have been moved to the Rotvalta, fully consumed by that holy flame, their bones moved into the special jars until they can be buried in the columbarium after the last thaw.</p><p>“Go away.” The shakiness in voice surprises him, making him curl forward on his knees, holding himself tighter.</p><p>“Nej, brother, I won’t. I can’t,” Ingemar tells him as he comes to sit beside him. His older brother is dressed for the weather, holding a sweet roll in his hand. Normally it’s one of Pelle’s favourites, but even typically mouth watering scent of it won’t bring back his hunger. Seeing Pelle’s head shake of refusal, Ingemar breaks it in half and starts to eat his half. His mouth is half full of food as he continues. “I am with you until the end.”</p><p><em>But which end?</em> Pelle thinks darkly. The end of his grief? The end of his life? Ingemar’s seventy-second birthday will happen first, he will take that great leap before him. There will be a time when Pelle must continue the journey alone, albeit for a short time. Ingemar’s birth parents are still alive, even if Berit is still off finishing the last of her pilgrimage before her thirty-sixth birthday. His brother might know many of Pelle’s thoughts and feelings, might even know parts of him better than he knows himself. But he doesn’t know this feeling. Not fully.</p><p>It is a treason to feel that way. An unholy thing to shirk from the family, but he cannot help himself. The soft sounds of Ingemar’s mouth working fill the silence that blankets them. Tears start to slip down Pelle’s cheeks, surprising him. The older boy slings an arm over his brother’s shoulders and Pelle leans against him, feeling the soft shuddering of Ingemar’s own ragged breathing. A tear falls onto Pelle’s temple. He need not look up to know that Ingemar is crying.</p><p>Neither says anything for a long while. The cold has rendered Pelle’s backside numb, his fingers too. The bun sits on Ingemar’s knee as they remain in the quiet dark until Dagny comes out, Hanna and Karin on her heels. All three carry blankets that they wrap around their brothers and themselves, cuddling them in the snow. No one tells Pelle to come inside, urges him away from the ruins. No talk is had of what will be built on this dark place, how it might become a paddock when the worker’s house is rebuilt elsewhere.</p><p>Grandmother Siv comes to stand at the doorway of the dining hall, Grandfather Sten beside her. They exchange a knowing look, understanding that the grief of children, the grief of an ill-timed loss needs its own time. Without a word, they turn back and return inside.</p><p>All five will have colds in the coming days. No one will be scolded for it. In fact, in their grief they will be praised.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p><br/>
<em>x.</em>
</p><p>“Perhaps you will get to be my father, eh?” Ingemar smiles, gives Pelle a teasing nudge in the side. It is a sharp, brittle smile that lives on his brother’s face, an echo of hopeful ones that he has previously worn. Pelle knows his brother’s smiles, his frowns, the planes of his faces just as keenly as he knows his own. Perhaps better.</p><p>For now Pelle will give his brother that hope. He has his doubts. He loves Dani, loves her in a way that is new and exciting and terrifying, the strange fervour of a love that exists only in the unspoken. He wants to shout it, wants to feel it echo back at him. He has loved her for longer than he could name her, but he is not a fool. Even as she was crowned, bright and beautiful, he knew that it is not so simple. There are still so many things that could go wrong, so much that only fate knows and he cannot ferret out.</p><p>It would be presumptuous to assume that love is enough to conquer something strange, something so overwhelming as what has happened and what is to come.</p><p>The taste of her lips, a memory made real, still lingers on his own. He licks his lips to pull it back to him.</p><p>“Perhaps. Wouldn’t be so different from how it is now,” Pelle teases right back. He has never known a world that has not had Ingemar in it, somewhere, even if an ocean and the other half of a shared goal separated them. There was something solid in knowing that his brother was there, like being aware of the scar on his left shoulder even if he has never really seen it. Ingemar is a part of him.</p><p>“I will still be here.” Ingemar encourages, and Pelle knows this is true. His brother will be part of everything, continuing on in the great circle that is everything. It doesn’t make the suddenness of his departure into what comes next less striking.</p><p>“I need you to be happy for me.” There’s an urgency in Ingemar’s voice, his hands reaching out to grasp Pelle’s. The sudden turn confuses Pelle, who holds tight.</p><p>“Of course I’m happy for you.”</p><p>“No, you misunderstand me, little brother,” Ingemar shakes his head. “I need you to be happy <em>for</em> me. You and our May Queen. Be happy.”</p><p>That is when it is Pelle’s turn to break. The veil pulls back and he is left feeling raw. The weight of that responsibility almost feels crushing, a millstone with his destiny. But their May Queen is a beacon, she’s come home and she will be happy. So will he, even as he side-stepped the flames.</p><p>He must have faith that Ingemar is right. That he will be happy. That he and Dani will be together.</p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>i.</em>
</p><p>“He is late, Mother Siv.”</p><p>A woman paces the room, back and forth, hands on the small of her back, feet bare on the rugs. Her entire body aches, ankles swollen, joints popping with every twist and turn. Other sisters with whom she shared these last few weeks of her pregnancy with have already had their children. Pain lashes across her features, a long moan escaping her as a contraction stops her in her tracks. Siv steps closer, moaning along with the younger woman, her breathing becoming an echo.</p><p>It passes and another does not follow close behind it. Her baby still waits. But for what?</p><p>Pain of a different sort hangs behind the younger woman’s eyes. She is worried, fearful of what has made her child arrive so late. Absentmindedly she rubs her hand over her engorged abdomen, pale blue eyes meeting Siv’s. The older woman pets her cheeks, pressing her forehead to hers, wordlessly encouraging patience and peace.</p><p>“Fret not. He will come when he is ready. Patience, Tove, patience.” This is Tove’s first child and while she is not as young as Berit, the worry of all new mothers is palpable.</p><p>Berit’s babe came a week and a half early — a ram when they had suggested a bull. Little Ingemar with dark blue eyes and a cry so loud that it had made all of the women in the mother’s house jump for a moment before laughing. Tove had held Ingemar to her own breast, pressing his small hand against the swell of her stomach and told him that his brother would be along shortly.</p><p>That feels like a lifetime ago.</p><p>“But he was meant to be a ram, what if…will the gods bless him and keep him safe if he’s born under the wrong stars?” Her arms cover her stomach protectively. These are the last days that her child will really be hers. When he comes he will belong to the family, be a part of a bigger whole. Tove is excited for that, carried aloft by the knowledge that he will never be alone. But she already misses the special nature of their bond, this time when he has only been hers and that she must protect him at all costs. But how can she protect him from misaligned stars? From a fate drawn out of sync?</p><p>The battle rages across Tove’s face, a war that Siv recognises, has waged herself though not quite this. Every mother is a warrior, a fighter for her children, be those borne of her heart or her body. She is heartened to see this transformation happening in front of her.</p><p>Siv runs a soothing hand along the soft brown waves of Tove’s hair. It hangs loose, the braids having not been woven tightly to start with and now have fallen apart entirely. There are unshed tears in the younger woman’s eyes as she releases her abdomen to hold onto Siv’s elbows, searching for stability.</p><p>Siv’s answer comes in the form of a soft hum, a kiss on the forehead. The acts of a mother comforting her child. Children might grow and become parents themselves, but a mother is always a mother even if her child rejoins the great cycle before her. This never goes away.</p><p>“We must trust the gods. He will be with us by Valborg, I have seen that much.” And Siv has, as has their oracle as old as she is. Both the paintings of the oracle and the meaning drawn from Siv’s own dreams have told her so. Valborg is in three days times, but it is still far enough away to offer hope.</p><p>The certainty in Siv’s tone is a grounding weight, solid and certain and Tove clings to it just as keenly as she clings to her mother. Grandmother My bustles into the room then, soft fresh linens in her arms, Tove’s sister Rakel tight on her heels holding a bowl of water. Another contraction, stronger this time courses through Tove, who lets out a hissing groan through gritted teeth.</p><p>“She must walk. It will help,” Grandmother My instructs, gesturing for Tove to move despite the pain. Tove hesitates until Siv links their arms together, coaxing movements out of her. They walk, Tove’s legs moving with the unsteady gait commonly seen on foals learning to walk, but Rakel comes to steady Tove’s other side, breathing each of her breathes with her.</p><p>Slowly more of Tove’s sisters join her, more of her mothers as well. Berit comes and walks, encouraging merrily, as does Janna who had her own Dagny just after midnight that very day. Both women as still swollen and unsteady on their feet, but their strength gives Tove strength.</p><p>Nearly two hours later, her waters break and tears start streaming down Tove’s face. The sun has just set when her son comes, their collective moans of pain and encouragement giving way to a baby’s cries.</p><p>“Pelle,” Siv names him as she holds him, her eyes meeting his, which are more open than most of the newly born. The women repeat the name in murmurs of joy, taking turns to bundle him tighter as they pass him from other to the other, alternatively praising him and Tove for all the hard work they have done.</p><p>There is so much love, it spills from the room and out into the dinner hall where all of Pelle’s fathers laugh and slap Gunnar on the back, where the rest of the family lifts a toast to their newest member, holding each other close.</p><p>There is no need to worry about what the heavens have set out just now. But what a beautiful table they have laid.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>vii.</em>
</p><p>“Do you guys have theme parties?” Dani asks him as they sit on the couch at Christian and Mark’s. A party is happening, ostensibly related Columbus Day. A terrible reason for a party in Pelle’s opinion, especially knowing what he knows about Indigenous cultures and their treatment in America. He suspects it was Mark’s idea.</p><p>“Sort of? We have a lot of celebrations, festivals and the like, that involve pageantry, traditions passed down, that sort of thing. A little like theatre,” Pelle explains, happy to indulge her curiosity. To let her see behind the curtain of his world, back to where he came from, where he is certain they both truly belong.</p><p>Dani looks charmed, if a little embarrassed, as she smiles, a small low laugh escaping her. He wonders if he shared too much or not enough. What could he have done differently?</p><p>“I meant, of the tacky, dress up in a thrift store costume or wear a certain colour or that sort of thing. A lot more ridiculous. Yours though,” she pauses, shaking her head in mild wonder as she takes a sip of her drink. He’s momentarily taken in by the way she presses her lips together, the soft peak of her tongue as she gathers herself. It takes more effort than it should to meet her eyes again. “Yours sound really lovely. Beautiful even. I like traditions like that.”</p><p><em>They can be yours too</em> he wants to offer her. They barely know each other but every instinct he has tells him that this is right. That Dani is one of them, that she is meant to be brought home to Hårga. Years of dreams have led to this, to her. He just didn’t imagine it would be so clear and yet obstructed somehow. She can’t be the only one he brings back. There are bigger needs then just them. Someday she’ll understand, he knows it.</p><p>But he is getting ahead of himself.</p><p>For all the years that she has been ghosted through his dreams, they have only known each other for a few weeks. He has met her through her boyfriend. She is not unattached, cannot be wholly his the way that Pelle is already hers.</p><p>From that day in the bar, the look in her eyes even before she offered her hand to him and he took it, Pelle knew that he wasn’t alone. That the universe is a strange place, full of a great many unexplainable things bigger than either of them. That the same influence that had carried her to him all those years ago had come to her too.</p><p>He has never asked her though. Never sought confirmation. He can feel it in his bones and one day she will tell him. One day they will laugh under the Hälsingland sun and spill out their secrets in the land they both call home.</p><p>So mired in the forest of his own thoughts as he has become, it takes Pelle a moment to realize that she has said something to him, asked him a question.</p><p>“Pardon?” He blushes faintly, his facial hair only obscuring part of it as he smiles sheepishly. The warmth in her own returned smile fills him up, will carry him forward in the coming days.</p><p>“Oh, um, yeah. An astrology themed party once. We all had to come as our own signs. It was ridiculous.” Dani rolls her eyes, smiling at the memory. “But also weirdly hard?”</p><p>The memory pleases her, Pelle can tell, but his interest is piqued. She has presented an answer to a question he previous thought he was going to have to ferret from Christian.</p><p>“Oh really?” Titling his head to the side in question, he pulls back as if to assess her. “Did you have to come as an archer?”</p><p>Another laugh bubbles out of her. “No, no. I wish I was a Sagittarius. That would’ve been much easier.”</p><p>“You’re not?” Such a thoughtful, healing sign. Now that he has laid it out there, he can see his mistake. She was not born in darkness as the year comes to a close, but some other time. “In my village, we like to dabble in astrology, runology, that sort of thing. We like our stars and our stones.” He shrugs it off, as if it hasn’t held a heavier sway over his existence. Like he doesn’t still have his first carving of <em>Sowilo</em>, worn smooth over the years in his dresser back at his studio apartment.</p><p>“You really <em>are</em> flower children.” Her delight makes him feel lighter. Her eyes lock on his and remains unbroken for longer than either of them should allow. Everything he wishes he could explain, could share with her, aches to be conveyed in their wordless conversation. But she doesn’t yet remember the language. Or is pretending she can’t understand to spare them both.</p><p>Pulling her eyes away, she takes a long sip of her drink and shakes her head. For a moment he watches her look around the party, hunting for Christian. A nice enough fellow, but he will never be enough for her. Pelle knew that weeks ago.</p><p>“I’m a Gemini.” Dani says and Pelle’s heart sinks like a stone. How could she be borne under such a wrong sign for him? What fate would be so cruel? Reeling, he takes a half step back, watching as she screws up her face. He almost misses her continuing her thought. “Or at least I think I am? My sign always seems to change depending on where I’m looking. It’s really confusing.”</p><p>His heart is racing. There is still hope. A child of a cusp is not so terrible. His palms are sweating. Palming his beer from hand to hand, he takes his time in wiping them dry on his jeans, picking at the label of the bottle. “Perhaps I could help you. When were you born?”</p><p>“June 22nd.”</p><p>“Oh a cusp, with Cancer. I can see it now. These things are confusing or so my grandmother says.” Relief floods through him, mixed with hope. On a cusp, but the first day of Midsommar next year. The timing could not be more perfect.</p><p>Alcohol has left a rosy flush on her cheeks and he can imagine her in the sun, exhilarated from the festivities. Fluidly, Dani leans against the back of the couch, looking at him with a thoughtful expression her face. Watching her, Pelle can see as she’s pulling herself away from him, trying to close the door even as she has left windows open. Silence crosses again as they both take sips of their drinks.</p><p>She swallows and clears her throat. “ If you want to go talk to someone that’s okay. I don’t mind being alone. Or I could play, um, wingman?” There is an edge to her offer, a tension in her shoulders, the way she bites her lower lip before taking a sip from her red solo cup. He can tell her offer is sincere, that if he accepted it she would put herself in that place for him. The idea of it twists him into knots. He has all he wants at this terrible party. What sort of fool would ask for more?</p><p>Except he wants to.</p><p>“No, thank you. I’m fine here. Though perhaps we should play matchmaker for Mark?” Deflection comes easily. Telling her the truth in this manner, confessing his feelings would do neither of them good. It would just as quickly push her away as draw her near. Turning things to their mutual acquaintance, the hapless Mark, is easily done.</p><p>“Oh God,” she groans. “I don’t know if Mark can be helped.”</p><p>As soon as he leaves the party that night he texts Ingemar his news, still grinning when he falls to sleep on the futon he calls a bed.</p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>ii. </em>
</p><p>A frown draws his brows together, knitting them into a line before Pelle even opens his eyes. It is the thoughtful version of the expression, one borne out of puzzlement rather than heated by anger. He is still half in the dreaming, one foot straddling each side of the gulf, but his conscious mind is already picking up the pieces. They had spent all day yesterday carving runes into pieces of bone, deliberating over every stroke. One at a time, a dream for each. It takes weeks and is heavy work, but each rune means something slightly different to the interpreter. Together, Pelle and his siblings will write their own dictionary, collective set of divinations for their generation.</p><p>His frown fades into a neutral expression, barring the confused knit of his brows when he opens his eyes. The watery light of early morning is stretching across the floor boards of the children’s house, casting the murals painted on the ceiling in an interest pattern of shadows. Animals and children leap about a sky, a mother sun and father moon looking merrily down at them.</p><p>Pelle’s blue eyes are fixed on the boards behind the paintings, the knots that can be seen like ghosts through the paint. Looking at them he might be, but his mind is still far away, piecing together the dream.</p><p>“Psst, are you awake?” Ingemar asks from his bed, voice louder than it is when they are truly whispering secrets in the dark, but still soft enough to not wake some of the older children who are still asleep. The brothers have pushed their beds closer together, all the better to conspire in the dark. On the other side of Pelle is where Dagny usually sleeps, but she has moved her bed <em>further</em> away, irritated by her brothers’ closeness and actions in that way unique to seven year olds. They will reconcile, of course they will, but for now she has picked Hanna over them. Neither boy is terribly bothered by it.</p><p>Pelle nods, still looking up at the ceiling. He doesn’t need to look at his brother to read his expression, he can put it together from memory already. Taking the subtle movement for the acknowledgement it was, Ingemar continues. “What did you dream of?”</p><p>His brother is asking for more details than the rough outline of Pelle’s dream. Even as young as they are, the unspoken means just as much as the words said aloud. Ingemar wants to know what the rune told him, what dreams filtered from the wood through the pillow and into his mind. The younger brother’s intuition has already garnered murmurs of praise, not enough to build an ego, but enough to encourage growth. Intuition is like a plant, it needs strong soil for a foundation just as much as it needs water and light.</p><p>Tilting his head to the side like he is examining the ground at the bottom of a coffee cup, Pelle tries to articulate his dreams. <em>Sowilo</em> burns hot like its namesake through his pillow, heat pricking his scalp. He wonders if he will have a bald patch on the back of his head when he sits up.</p><p>Casting his mind around, he thinks of what can be easiest described, what can be named without too much being lost. Colours are easiest, as are objects that are used everyday. There are deeper meanings that he hasn’t lived enough to truly articulate. That will come later.</p><p>Rolling over to his side, Pelle looks at Ingemar’s face, eager and openly curious, desperate for knowledge and insight. Ingemar’s blond hair stands on end, giving him a wild appearance like he’s just sprinted a mile despite not having left his bed. He’s never been the best at staying still.</p><p>“I dreamt of…” Pelle pauses, feeling around for where to proceed. <em>Sowilo</em> is the sun, bright and open, victory and health. And he felt that, a sense of wholeness that has lingered, making him wonder how he is not whole in his waking life. The wonder of it astounds and baffles. All of this must show on his face, or enough of it for Ingemar to sit upright in giddiness.</p><p>“Yes?” Ingemar encourages.</p><p>And there it is, an image crystallising so vividly that he wonders if he will be able to sketch it later or if it will fall apart under his interpretation. Eyes that are the greens and browns of late summer, a smile that wrinkles her small nose. Pelle sits up just as suddenly, startled by how strong it pulses through him, utterly caught off-guard. “A girl,” he answers surprised. “I dreamt about a girl made of sunlight.”</p><p>“Oh.” Ingemar doesn’t manage to hide his disappointment and confusion, even as he is happy for his brother’s dreaming. “<em>Ehwaz</em> just gave me dogs. I wonder which is better. Probably mine.”</p><p>Mine is, Pelle thinks with a sudden rightness that startles him. He feels certain and can’t explain how his dream is better, how there is something about this girl child who is the sun, gilded in daisy chains and laughing.</p><p>Instead he laughs and nods in agreement. “Probably yours.”</p><p>“What are you both up to?” Dagny’s sleepy voice comes from behind Pelle, and both brothers exchange a shared mischievous grin.</p><p>“Nothing,” they answer in unison to their sister. She will find out soon enough. “Go back to sleep, Dagny,” Pelle hushes not ready to share with another person. He aches to go back to sleep himself, but he doesn’t think that <em>Sowilo</em> will bless him twice, not when the sun is hard at work already.</p><p>Ingemar has already moved on to describing the actions of the dogs, the feelings he felt and Pelle rolls back over to listen, eager for a story to distract from his own.</p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>xiii.</em>
</p><p>For a moment, Pelle wonders if she fainted. His heart, already beating a steady tattoo in his chest, races a little faster as he weaves through their family towards her prone form. Gods, let it not be something more sinister. Let it just be the heat and the exorcising of all those unholy affekts has has brought her down.</p><p>He couldn’t bear if something worse has fallen her. Not after all that they have been through. There is still so much they haven’t done, so much left unsaid.</p><p>“Dani?” Peering down at her, his own crown of leaves and ferns creating a monstrous shadow over her form. Dani is spread out on the grass, drowning in flowers, her eyes on the sky. Does she even know that he is there? Or has her mind fled, seeking shelter elsewhere?</p><p>He falls to his knees beside her, slipping his laurels off his head and casting them aside. More care should have been shown, for they are are signify of the value he has contributed, a marker of his worthiness to side step the flames that had been his destiny as well. His intuition was faultless, in the end. He brought them a ninety year May Queen. A queen who will reign longer than a season, albeit in a different way.</p><p>“Dani?” He repeats her name, tempted to chant it like one of their songs. He is breathing life back into her, coaxing her back from a brink that he cannot follow. But if she wanted him to, if she asked, he would gladly go over the edge with her.</p><p>“My moon,” she smiles sleepily up at him, her eyes fixed on his face, looking at him like he’s the most wonderful thing she’s ever seen. “Pelle.”</p><p>Her name on his lips cracks something open and he smiles at her, lighter to know that she is still there.</p><p>“Yes Dani? What do you need?” He offers his hand to her, seeing her struggle to part the magnificent folds of her cloak until she manages to work her hand free. Pelle sighs when she grasps his offered one, releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding.</p><p>Carefully he peels back the cage of her flowered crinoline, finding the seem with deft fingers and urging it open. It is like unwrapping the most precious of gifts.</p><p>Sweat coats her body, turning the linen shift she wears transparent. He can see the outline of her nipples, pebbling in the sudden coolness of the air, and he stares, momentarily transfixed by their movement, up and down, with every breath she takes. Something stirs within him, his blood already up from the burning, and he feels himself starting to go hard. With great effort he forces his gaze back up to her face.</p><p>Carefully and wordlessly he lifts her up, cradling her to his chest, one arm under her knees, the other around her upper back. The wicker hoops support the cloak remain on the ground, cracked open like a rib cage around a strong but fragile heart. Her crown remains on her head, blocking part of his peripheral vision as she rests her head on his shoulder, one arm bonelessly draped over his shoulder.</p><p>He can feel her breathe warm on his neck as he raises himself to his feet.</p><p>“Home,” she sighs and he shivers at the feeling of her lips against his neck. “We’re home.”</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>vi.</em>
</p><p>The smell of New York is overwhelming, unbearable in its relentless assault of his senses.</p><p>The efficiency that he has rented meets its name to the fullest, a semi-furnished shell of an apartment. There are a few remnants of Hårga, a couple of plants that he bought to bring some trace of life, but it is nothing, <em>nothing</em> like home. It is like the aftermath of a field burning, but even those smoking barren remains have a promise of new life.</p><p>Pelle has to focus on that — the promise. So many promises, so much weight on his and his brother’s shoulders. While a year might have seen like plenty of time when they stood, saying their silent good byes in the Stockholm airport, Pelle now worries it might not be enough. An entire city awash with stray people, closely tied up in their bland, colorless world. There is no curiosity in them or what curiosity there is it feels fleeting. It might not be enough.</p><p>Even the taste of the air feels wrong and it chafes at him for all of his generic, genial smiles. He draws, he meets his professors, walks this city at various hours, learns the subway, he worries.</p><p>Then he meets Josh.</p><p>Josh is affable, but rigid. Self-serious in a way that makes him like a stone — drop him into water and watch him sink. And Pelle knows with every exacting question, every move of Josh’s body that Hårga is the perfect well. It barely takes any effort to slide in. Josh believes that he has hooked a perfect source, insight into his own research for his dissertation, a gateway that can speak <em>English</em> and knows how to provide supplementary sources.</p><p>Pelle knows that Josh looks at him and sees a gold mine. The glint is easily reflected by his eyes. But there is something about him that makes Pelle like him. It is like having an interesting cat. You never really belong to one another, but an amiable peace settles down. Plus cats frequently bring small presents to their favoured humans, viewed as helpless, lesser versions of cats. But instead of small rodents and leftover livers, Josh brings Pelle exactly what he <em>does</em> need: people.</p><p>Christian comes first, a jovial and placid fellow post grad in the Anthropology department. The two American men have a strange dynamic, equal parts friends and enemies, both longing for what the other has (the ease of being a legacy and vision). Pelle finds himself liking Christian more, in a pitying sort of way. This man is more like a dog trying to swim upstream. He can do it, but the effort exhausts. The act of being seems to weigh him down. Christian brings Mark into Pelle’s orbit and with that he knows that he certainly has two in Josh and Mark, three knowing that Christian will not want to be left out of some chance that Josh is taking. The thirst cannot be quenched.</p><p>He does not take the likelihood of them coming along for granted. It is far too early to do that and he has been taught better, has learned the value of patience. But how he wishes he could give up on New York, convince these men to follow him now and be done with it. But it is months too early and they could still back out.</p><p>The taste of the stale air, the crude black liquid that passes for coffee, all of it drags Pelle down. It makes him feel like he is a plant and his leaves are browning, the soil too thin to sustain him outside of the shadowed light his mission gives.</p><p>But then.</p><p>Then she comes. She arrives on a day when he is questioning everything, his intuition, his course load, his need to stay and not move onto another American city. Chicago perhaps, or further down the Eastern coast.</p><p>He drinks his beer and makes small talk and feels the air shift when she walks into the bar, but it isn’t until later when he’s been knocked off his balance does he realize how he sensed it. <em>Sowilo</em> burns in his pocket and he winces at the pain before turning towards the new arrival.</p><p>The girl who has grown and changed in his mind’s eyes, in his dreams and his waking hours. His mouth twists into a imperceptibly brighter smile as he sets his eyes on hers, blue meeting green and he knows her. She knows him. It might be dark and smell of ancient smoke in this room, but she shines so brightly.</p><p>Her name is Dani and she does not belong to him. She is Christian’s girlfriend, Christian’s afterthought. Dani is a bright thing though no one else seems to see it, not even herself. He wants to ask her, wants to hold her offered hand.</p><p>Instead she flees, hides from him. It takes two more weeks before he sees her again.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p><br/>
<em>v.</em>
</p><p>Water. So much water. He knows that he must cross an ocean, though it takes him years to get to that conclusion. Images of the sun on water, the color distorted, ever changing made pinpointing where harder. Now he knows that he has not yet gone far enough.</p><p>Sitting on a stool in front of the elders, Pelle feels like a small child once more. They know of his dreams, know that his intuition is strong. They trust it and are teaching him to trust it too, to following the invisible thread to where it is knotted.</p><p>Besides he has a mission to accomplish, one that serves the larger whole.</p><p>“New York?” Grandfather Arne repeats Pelle’s request back at him, dark brows knitting together in a frown. “Are you certain?”</p><p>The answer is that he is not certain. New York feels right, the more universities he explored online and programs he applied to told him as much. But it is much further afield than he had originally attended. Americans are a difficult lot. While it might be easier for them to dispose of people as a whole in their culture, it might be harder to convince the three individuals to come home as guests. And he needs three.</p><p>Besides there is the matter of where his intuition is guiding him. Stockholm and Copenhagen had not provided the answer to his question. Neither had</p><p>New York City is a long shot, but he trusts that it is the right one.</p><p>“Yes, Grandfather. There are enough people, many of whom are lost and searching, who I think would be well suited for our offerings,” Pelle pauses, looking at each of the Elders in turn. “And what I study will help Hårga as well.”</p><p>This eludes a soft chuckle from the Elders. The point of the pilgrimage is to learn things that can be brought back to Hårga, to better the family and the community, as well as foster an appreciation for what has been left behind. This year has a heavier weight for both himself and Ingemar. To find and bring offerings for the 90 year Midsommar, to help purge the most unholy affekts is a blessing. It is not one to be taken lightly.</p><p>Still he can have a dry joke about what he can learn in that far off city. This half-real dream that has so much water in it, the sun on murky depths.</p><p>“Then go, our child. May your intuition be unclouded and your path unblocked,” Grandfather Sten intones with a nod as Grandmother Siv bangs the gavel.</p><p>“Mats will help arrange your travel,” Grandmother Siv instructs and just like that, he is set upon his next path, hoping that his aim will be true.</p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>ix.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>A hundred notes, started and only a handful finished on various types of paper litter the small table that doubles as his desk. Text message he erases before sending, emails that he discards (once he goes so far to hit send only to hastily recall it thirty seconds later).</p><p>There are so many things that he wishes to tell her. None of the words are coming out right.</p><p>He had sat there and played along, urging Christian to chase his freedom and cast Dani aside even as he wished to pull her closer. Buried his own frustration at the situation, steeling himself for the ominous foretelling that the Elders had cast. For days after he had returned to New York he had waited to hear what it would be, listening to Christian’s complaints and Mark’s cajoling all while wondering if a break up was the suffering that had been foretold.</p><p>It hadn’t been.</p><p>It has been weeks and he hasn’t seen her. Not even in his dreams. It is like a limb has been cut off. He is fumbling blind and does not know where the door is. Night after night he wakes and hears her cries, the repetition of the no like a mournful howl. Night after night his heart breaks and there is nothing that he can do.</p><p>Not once in all of his projected fears of doom had he seen this. A veil of ice and snow has fallen between them and while she stays in New York and so does he, when he sees her again a month and a half after after that terrible night he feels like they’ve never been further apart.</p><p>Every word he wants to tell her, every gesture, every affekt, none of them can get through. None of them stay right. She is an open, pulsing wound and he is wounded right there with her, a dying creature in this forest of steel and glass.</p><p>His birthday comes and Pelle has never felt more miserable, more aware that while he will succeed in his goal of bringing three guests, he has failed in the longings of his heart.</p><p>Once again he is alone, in a bright city, spring a filthy ghost on the air.</p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>xi.</p><p>
  <em>Dani is Queen. Dani is the May Queen.</em>
</p><p>He had drawn it, had wished it into being from the moment she saw the photo of Ulla from last year. But wishing doesn’t make things so. If it did things would’ve been more seamless, less painful even if pain is a necessary part of it. Suffering can lead to freedom, the act of wresting free has its own weight. That was something Pelle knew. He had lived it, had watched Dani live it again and again and again over these past few months.</p><p>She had always been a queen in his mind, ever since that night when she had been young and he had been young and she filtered in on moonlight, a ray of sunlight through the dark. He had envisioned her wreathed in flowers, but not <em>these</em>.</p><p>His heart is bursting. His feet are light. He does not care at all that Christian lingers on the edge of the fray, watching it all. Maja will have her child. Christian will have the flames or a hangover, a blank spot in his memory of the past few days. Pelle no longer cares as he moves towards Dani, the invisible thread that has connected them for so long pulling him towards her.</p><p>The look on her face is stricken and he catches the word that has just left her lips. A cry for her mother, whose ghost must be lingering to see her daughter off into her new family. The smile she gives him when he draws near, when he says her name, tells her that he is right. He is right. It has all been worth it.</p><p>On an impulse he kisses her. It isn’t enough, barely lasting long enough for her to react when he has to give her up to the rest of their family. But it is good, it is perfect.</p><p>And so is she.</p><p>He watches her raised on the platform, sings along, and knows what he has known since he was seven years old: Dani is the sun.</p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>viii.</em>
</p><p>“She is merkstaved.” Grandmother Siv’s tone is matter of fact as she stands fully upright, fingertips pressing firmly against the off-white tablecloth. The other Elders lean forward, nodding and muttering agreement with the matriarch’s words.</p><p>Pelle feels like a child, sitting on the stool, hands gripping his knees as he watches them.</p><p>A vice clenches around Pelle’s heart. Merkstaved. Does his grandmother mean all of Dani’s runes or just some of them? Is this foretelling that despite the promise of the heavens, that the writing of the earth says that they are a bad match? He doesn’t want it to be so, can’t reconcile such a wrongness with what he has seen in his mind, what he has felt within his own heart.</p><p>It is selfish, how much he wants his grandmother to be wrong. The odd possessiveness that he has no right too. Dani is her own woman. They all know that she must come by her own volition, that staying must be her choice. That she must pick the family, especially since he will not be stying with them in the after.</p><p><em>I want to stay</em>. The errant thought is another betrayal. He wants to stay. He isn’t afraid of the flames or death, but he wants to stay for her and he doesn’t even know if she is coming. If she will stay. Perhaps it is just as Grandmother Siv says and Dani is merkstaved, opposed to them, blocked and turned away. Closed off from how things should be.</p><p>He nods, putting on a show of understanding, trying to hide the cracks on his heart. He doesn’t say anything aloud, but his very body tells his Elders everything that they need to know.</p><p>Grandmother Siv rapts her knuckles to the table, drawing his attention to the rune stones there. A simple set of three lay there, <em>Raidho</em> and <em>Dagaz</em>, both merkstaved, foretelling both good and bad, set against the <em>Sowilo</em> Pelle knows to be Dani. “Something is coming. It will be quick, but it will be painful,” Grandmother Siv explains, her tone the mournful ache of a mother, already pained for the future heartache of her child. Life is pain just as it is joy, but this is something else. Pelle’s intuition tells him that. This will be something harder.</p><p>With great care, Siv gathers up the stones once more, tucking them into the bag that she loomed herself years ago. Pelle leans closer to watch as she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, exhaling in a noise puff of air, and then draws five runes, laying them out in a diamond. <em>Raidho</em> and <em>Dagaz</em> once more appear, as does <em>Sowilo</em>. Gravity of the reoccurrence weighs down on him. This is Dani and she will suffer, her travel impeded, her loss great. He grieves for her already before noting the other two runes in the spread. <em>Fehu</em> and <em>Ingwaz</em>.</p><p>A smile breaks across Grandmother Siv’s face at the sight of it, her hands clasping together in joy. The other Elders smile and claps, all heartened by what they read there. Only the diviner, the one who cut and cast the runes can truly read all that there is to see in them, can interpret what the influence is trying to tell them. But Pelle knows what he reads, what they are saying to him even if they are not cast by his own hand. Despite the tears that have started to form in his eyes, he smiles, breathing shakily as he looks up at their shining faces.</p><p>Grandmother Siv comes around the table, placing her hands on his shoulders, pressing her forehead against his.</p><p>“Trust, my child. She will come home. She will stay.”</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>iv.</em>
</p><p>Flashes of her keep appearing. It’s distracting how she’s moved from haunting his dreams to slipping into his waking life.</p><p>They are both heading off on pilgrimage in a few weeks, a heady rush of being outside of Hårga for the first time is fuelling their furtive fumbling. Neither expects anything serious, neither wants anything more from the other. These are the exploratory gropings common to 18 year olds, furtively and enthusiastically practiced but still a touch inadequate.</p><p>Carefully he works his way down Karin’s neck, kissing along her pulse point before biting and sucking a red mark there. A gasp and a giggle escapes her, but through it he can hear something else. Someone else, exhaling a breathy moan of pleasure. It catches him off-guard, makes him pause for a moment before he returns to his ministrations, working a hand up Karin’s skirt.</p><p>The soft skin of her inner thighs is familiar, but his mind registers a slightly different texture beside it. He withdraws his hand suddenly, startled by the mishmash of sensations, his mind having trouble distinguishing which one is real. Perhaps they both are.</p><p>He tries again, shuts off unasked for comparisons, slams the door on that influence and focuses on the girl beneath him, her body pressed against the cattle barn, her hand on his cock. In the end it isn’t as good as he had been hoping, but there is nothing that can be done about that now.</p><p>“You’re different,” Karin comments casually as she reties the closure her dress. Pelle is pulling up his trousers and makes a non committal noise. “What is going on?”</p><p>“I keep seeing her.” His brow furrows as he finishes buttoning his trousers, like the appearance annoys him. It does, in its way. Haunted since childhood by a girl he’s never met, never even seen outside of his mind’s eye. Scrubbing a hand across his eyes, Karin laughs at his expression. Like his annoyance is cute. It makes Pelle feel stormy, seeking out the need to brood.</p><p>“Ah, your mystery girl.” Her tone is knowing. Most of his sisters who are near enough to his age know of this girl. With her green eyes and blond hair, something far off about her, just out of focus. They don’t know all of the details, the nature of some of the dreams that have turned up as of late, the ardor that floods them. Even Ingemar is only given the scant details of some of those.</p><p>Karin pinches his cheeks, affectionately teasing, making Pelle scowl. He is no mood for coddling, especially by someone whose breasts were in his hands a scant few minutes earlier.</p><p>The influence is too strong in him. What makes him special makes him vulnerable. How easily he can be confused by something just outside this reach.</p><p>Copenhagen will be better. Maybe she will appear and disappear by then.</p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>xiv.</em>
</p><p>The cage of the May Queen’s robe is used to make a bower.</p><p>While Pelle had cradled Dani in his arms, reverently holding her like the precious thing she is, his brothers and fathers had gathered up the remnants of her robe from the field, carried them off to the house of the May Queen, a simple cottage. Like the rest of the grounds it is only used in the summer, but this one is used even less than that. Within the confines of the cottage they drape the flowers, using the wicker to make an arch, a nest of garland and greenery.</p><p>It will be waiting when Pelle brings Dani to the house, fast asleep in his arms.</p><p>For now, he brings her to the nursing house, where he frets on the edges as his sisters attend to her as she lays boneless from exhaustion. They finally take note of him and shoo him away so that they can rub salve on her scratches, wash the sweat from her body and change her clothes.</p><p>Pelle paces outside the building, creating a track of bare earth in the grass. No one comes to tell him to come help with anything. No more ceremonies will be performed today. Even the last meal will be sparse; a simple mix of bread and fruit and cheeses. No one has any energy for something harder. All of their unholy affeckts have been burned away, prosperity will remain with Hårga for another ninety years. But the cost is greater than the nine they have given. Little parts of themselves have been burned away.</p><p>He stops pacing when he hears the door open. His track has led him to the far corner from the door and he hurries back towards it, a stone getting caught in his shoe. It is very undignified for the Green Man to stumble, but he manages to right himself regardless.</p><p>“You have grass stains on your knees,” Ulla remarks taking him in, eyebrow arching even as she smiles. Stepping back, she gestures him inside. “Come, our May Queen is asleep, but you may take her home now.”</p><p>It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness inside, to bring clarity to the shapes. Dani is stretched out on a cot made for a much taller person, her hair lose around her shoulders, her eyes closed. The white shift they’ve changed her into is embroidered with vines and flowers from the hem to her waist.</p><p>The sight of her stills his heart, snatches the air from his lungs. She is resplendent.</p><p>Ulla laughs at the look on his face, giving Hanna a nudge as they exchange knowing looks.</p><p>“The Queen has taken our Pelle’s words away,” Hanna notes as she finishes folding the blanket at the foot of the cot, beckoning him closer. “Hurry now.”</p><p>Despite his efforts, Dani’s eyes flutter open as he crouches beside her bed, scooping her into his arms once more. This is not how the stories go. A kiss is supposed to be what wakes her, not his presence alone.</p><p>But most of those stories have no place here.</p><p>“I am going to take you elsewhere to sleep. A sick house is no place for a queen,” he tells her softly, a besotted smile on his face. She reaches up and strokes his cheek gently, smiling at him with half lidded eyes before she starts to force herself up. “No, no, I’ve got you.”</p><p>That does not stop her. Dani does not sit upright fully, just enough to bring her mouth to his. A kiss, but the sleeping girl is the giver not the receiver in this story. She wakes him up with a fervent display of things never said, her hand still on his cheek as he opens his mouth to hers, tasting and wanting more.</p><p>“No,” she says as she breaks the kiss, the time it lasted is so much less than he wanted it to be, but still glorious and worthy. If this is the only other kiss they share in this life, then it will be worth it. A bewildered, besotted smile comes onto his face.</p><p>“No?” he echoes, frozen half in the act of lifting her. She makes a motion that urges him to continue and he does, taking care as he gets to his feet.</p><p>“No,” she repeats. “I’ve got <em>you</em>.”</p><p>And she does.</p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>xv.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>A woman screams.</p><p>It is a beautiful July day when all hell breaks loose, the quiet being cracked open, the yolk of spilling forth into a bray of animals and startled voices.</p><p>They are ready for it.</p><p>Dani sits bolt upright, strands of tall grass clinging to her clothes and hair. Beside her, Pelle sits upright, smudges of dirt the width of Dani’s fingers are streaked down his bare back.</p><p>Her green eyes are wide, already envisioning what she has not yet seen. Like a cornered rabbit, muscles tense and twitching, she grabs his hands, holding him tight. He closes his hand around hers, holding her close, but not tight. She could always break free. He would let her.</p><p>“Oh no,” Dani breathes as flashing lights come into view.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Well there we go, part two! We have finished with the canon timeline, as much as I’m really going to go to that well. The next parts are the really good stuff: all the after and what that means. Definitely at least a soupçon of smut, so yes, buckle in.</p><p>It may take a little longer for part three to arrive as my laptop screen decided it was not going to function, which is annoying. Fortunately I back up everything and have been putting this together on an iPad with a keyboard attached. The rest will come, it will just take a little more time!</p><p>Back in undergrad  I took a class on Old Norse, so I went and dug out some of my texts for this and the next parts. Who would’ve known that this is how that class would pay off? Not I! (There was also a point in my childhood where my mother taught me to cast runes and read them for insight into problem solving which I also cribbed.)  I do have some resources that I’ll be throwing up on tumblr later for the curious. </p><p>A quick and dirty primer for the ones used here are as follows:</p><p><span class="u">Raidho:</span> A journey/travel, destiny, the place you will go. Merkstaved it can mean a lot of things like being stuck in one place, a death, a crisis/disruption of some sort . Together with Dagaz these were on Dani’s dress and on the birthday drawing in their merkstaved versions.<br/><span class="u">Dagaz: </span> day/dawn/new beginnings/success. can’t be really reversed but the merkstaved reading is being limited, a sense of hopelessness, things coming full circle<br/><span class="u">Sowilo:</span> the sun! Success and goals achieved, positive energy<br/><span class="u">Ehwaz: </span>transportation, recklessness, motion and movement, partnership<br/><span class="u">Fehu: </span> prosperity, success in achieving one’s goals, good fortune.  this was the rune in Pelle’s tunic in the film! It’s also the tune tied to Taurus and the moon sometimes<br/><span class="u">Ingwaz:</span> fertility, balance, a coming together,  being grounded to the earth and spirit in family love. </p><p> Please listen to “Human” by the Hunts for additional mental insight for the mood of this chapter. Also “Hardest of Hearts” by Florence + the Machine and “She Lit a Fire” by Lord Huron.</p><p>I would like to take this time to take everyone for commenting and reading! It has been so lovely to prattle at people!  Please feel free to continue to do so and to bother me at daydreamers on tumblr.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. bodies fashioned out of dirt and dust</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Because I cannot let anything alone, even when it comes to structure, please enjoy the journey in linear time from here on out!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>i.</em>
</p><p>Through the open trapdoor in the ceiling, stars are just beginning to shine, peaking out through the brilliant, midnight twilight.</p><p>Dani sees them through the leaves of the bower, waving on every blink, and she smiles. Perhaps the stars are just as curious as she is to see what happens next. Through the thick syrup of her thoughts, every moment drawn out to twice the length of normal, a thought strikes her. She wants to give them a show. Let them see how she dances.</p><p>Pelle’s voice brings her back to the moment, not like a leaden weight, but a reassuring moor. She drifted in and out of her body as he carried her, buffered by the gentle voices of her family, careful caress of her hair and face. With such tenderness, he brought her into this house, more of a hut really, placing her gently down on the bed. An earthy scent overwhelms her, softness closing in around her, hugging her entire form. In that moment she says.</p><p>“Hmm? What?” Her head lols to the side, exhaustion pulling everything out of her as she looks at where he stands awkwardly beside the bed. It takes a moment for her to realise that he’s waiting.</p><p>His smile is one of soft wonder as he looks at her. “I asked if you would like our sisters to join you? It was a lot and I don’t want you to feel you that must sleep alone.”</p><p>Her heart skips an urgent beat. Despite her boneless feeling, she starts to push herself upright, worry creasing her forehead, lips tugged down in a frown. Every emotion is close to the surface, a cup full to the brim. “What?” Tears start to slip, unbidden, down her cheeks. “No. Where will you be?”</p><p>It is a refreshing twist that she doesn’t try to bury her feelings, try to hide her emotions and vulnerability away. How much of her life has been wasted pretending that strength only exists from being free of feeling? More than she ever wants to spend again.</p><p>“Oh my Dani,” he consoles, coming closer and sitting on the bed beside her. “I will be anywhere you want me to be. Always.”</p><p>“Then stay here,” she reaches out, grabbing ahold of his shirt and pulling him closer. Her hand is near where his heart is, her eyes locked on his. “Stay with me. You’re the only one that I want.”</p><p>No words pass between them for a moment, not aloud at least. She’s telling him so many things in her gaze, all the words that she doesn’t have being poured into her expression. Every answer she wants, needs to hear are coming back to her from him.</p><p>Later neither of them will be able to say who moved first. If she leaned forward and he met her halfway, or the reverse. The distance evaporates, her lips meeting his with a fervent sort of passion, a desperation that they might not have enough time to make up for what they have hidden away and what still must come. His hands go to her waist as she opens her mouth to his, her free hand on the hairs on the nape of her neck, the other pulling him closer to her.Leaning back onto the bed, she drags him down with her, the soft planes of her body pressed against the firmer ones of his.</p><p>Satisfied she releases her grip on his shirt, wrapping her arms around him, pushing up the sweat soaked fabric to run her hands along his spine. A moan escapes her, an indelicate thing, the sound of getting what she’s wanted for so long. The anticipation alone is enough to get her halfway there as she opens her legs to him, bracketing his hip as his hands push up the end of her dress.</p><p>This has happened before, but it was only ever in a dream.Having it be real is so much better than either of them knew.</p><p>Canting her hips up towards him, feeling the firm length of his growing erection as she brushes against it, almost teasing. Pelle groans, breaking the kiss to shudder against her.Dani smiles, her teeth catching his lips in an affectionate nip, more than a little pleased with herself. The slickness between her legs that has been building all afternoon is starting to spill out. If she were wearing underwear, they would be drenched.</p><p>“<em>Dani</em>,” he breathes, eyes wide and pupils blown as he stares at her. She moves her hips again, aching to feel him, delighting in his reaction. “I still have my shoes on.”</p><p>This shocks her, reality intruding, just as it seems to surprise him. Her hands still on his back as she blinks up at him, not quite certain how to respond. Suddenly she has rushed back into awareness of things outside her body and his, can feel the mattress beneath her back and see the stars shining above them, blocked by flowers and Pelle’s tousled hair. Something in her expression must startle Pelle, for he pulls back slightly, his hand emerging from under her dress to rest beside her waist on the mattress.</p><p>He looks uncertain, like a deer caught in headlights, half-wrecked, but shy. Dani revels in it, luxuriates in the power of having left him mildly wrong footed. A laugh burbles out of her and to her own surprise she places a quick peck on his cheek and gives his ass a bit of a tap. The moment spell of tension is instantly broken.</p><p>“You should take them off. Socks too,” she says, rearranging her features into one of mock seriousness.Pelle’s uncertainty washes away, a smile blooming in its place. Unable to help herself she ruffles his hair.</p><p>“Yes, my queen,” he tries to sketch a bow with his head as he pulls away from her, but is somewhat unsuccessful. The loss of his touch pains, but she stretches out like a cat, luxuriating in the softness of the bed, the delicate scent of flowers and leaves as she watches him remove his shoes, hoping for a moment on one foot to take off his socks. It is a surprisingly awkward act, one that’s awkward because she is watching and waiting and he knows it.</p><p>Fondness surges up through her, a bright unwavering heat that feels so much like love and yet nothing like the love she felt for Christian that she doesn’t even think to name it.Light from the candles that she hadn’t realised were even there catches his hair, adding filaments of gold to the soft brown strands.</p><p>Every night that she has spent in Hårga, Pelle has been in the bed beside her. A steady constant even as so many things changed.That first night when she noticed that she would be sleeping between him and Christian, she had blushed furiously, feeling guilty over nothing that had happened. There had been a gap of space and air, but the floorboards had connected them. So much had connected them.</p><p>Now that space is gone and finally Dani feels like she can breathe again.</p><p>Once his shoes and socks are off, Pelle stands still, watching her. His chest is going up and down, in steady, heavy breaths, like he’s run a mile. Dani finds herself breathing in time with him, every breath of his mirrored in her. The want she feels is sort of heady, as her eyes rake his body, trying to memorise every inch of him.</p><p><em>He’s wearing too many clothes, </em>the insistent, errant thought pops into her head. She smiles at it, agreeing wholeheartedly and wondering what he’s waiting for. He wants this, he wants <em>her, </em>she knows this deep in her bones and that is before she takes the outline of his erection in his loose trousers.</p><p>When he remains standing, shifting his weight from foot to foot, Dani frowns in confused annoyance, wondering what he’s waiting for.Then it hits her. He’s waiting for <em>her, </em>for her to reaffirm that she hasn’t changed her mind. That her previous invitation still stands.</p><p>A thrill runs through her, the power of it. She is the May Queen, <em>his </em>queen. Her permission is never to be taken for granted. A flush of excitement stains down her neck and across her chest, flushing warm. Smiling a cat-like smile, she offers her hand out to him.</p><p>“Come to bed, Pelle.” Her voice is a command rasp, half an octave lower than it normally is, like she is a character in some 1940s movie. It shocks her a little, but adds to the thrill that she is no longer who she was yesterday or the day before. All of that has been burned away with the fire.Now she’s a queen and she demands to be adored.</p><p>At her command Pelle nearly pounces, returning to lay beside her on the bed with a deliberate speed, like he had been a sprinter waiting to be allowed off the block. All long, lean muscle and careful movements, his hands returning to her waist once more as she pulls him in for another searing kiss.</p><p>Despite the bone crushing exhaustion that is weighing her down, the need that Dani feels puts an urgency into her movements. They won’t get far, she knows that. Not for a lack of will, but due to the fact that both of them are working on borrowed time. The need to prove that they are still living, that even as everything unholy and wrong has been purged from their bodies, the beast sent to think of what he has done for another ninety years, they are both still here. They both still want.</p><p>She peels his shirt up and over his head, breaking the kiss long enough for him to slip out of it.He hovers over her, watching her reaction to his body, to his freckles and the smattering of hair. How did her mind conjure it so clearly when this is the first time that she has truly looked?</p><p>“Oh,” she sighs.Running her hand down the planes of his chest and then up again, her fingers dancing asthey make their way down his arms to his hands, those hands. She takes one of his in her own, guiding it up to her breast, showing him where she wants him to touch her first. He takes instruction well, cupping her right breast in his palm briefly before tweaking her nipple, bending his head down to catch it in his mouth while working his other hand down the length of her body, stroking her softly through her shift. A moan escapes her as she parts her legs further, inviting him to touch, to meet her where her sex is already wet, has been wet at the thought of him for longer than she wants to admit to. His hand snakes under the linen, disappearing under the stitched flowers to trace a flower on the skin of her inner thigh.</p><p>She sighs, bucking her hips up towards him, feeling the heat build up within her as he moves from one breast to the other, murmuring something in a language she only half understands. She is half-unraveled just from the feeling of his mouth, the press of his touch on her always sensitive breasts when his hand finds her clit, toying around the edges of it, deliberate and certain, like her body is an instrument that only he truly knows how to play. Maybe it is. All the other players have been amateurs by comparison. Right before he slips a finger into her folds, he lifts his head to kiss her on the mouth, swallowing her gasping moan as he slides a finger into her, using his height to his advantage.</p><p>It doesn’t take long before she falls apart completely, arching into his hand as she comes. Now the exhaustion presses further, sleep following after such a release. Her eyes are drifting towards half-mast even he slides his hand out, moving until he is laying beside her once more, his body half-curled towards her. A sense of fairness drives her to reach for him, slipping her own hand into the front of his trousers to cup his cock, holding the firm length of him in her small hand. But the energy to give him more than one or two cursory strokes has fled her. Pelle lets out a soft moan of his own, a regretful sound as he carefully removes her hand from him, sensing that she belongs more to the land of dreaming than that of those awake right now. Dani cannot brings herself to feel embarrassed by it, pressing her body against his as she rests her head on his chest, eyes drifting closed. She feels him press a kiss to the top of her head.</p><p>“Sleep, my queen. Rest.”</p><p>Tomorrow is another day, a whole new world.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p><em>ii</em>.</p><p> </p><p>In the morning she wakes, curled around him in sleep. His arm is wrapped around her waist, their legs tangled together, her right hand interlaced with his left. A human Gordian knot, the lines where she ends and he begins have blurred to being indistinguishable. Maybe they were never really there, not properly anyway.</p><p>Dani goes rigid, breath coming back to her in hasty tumbles, mind whirling even as her heart refuses to give into panic and pick up speed. <em>Hush now, </em>it murmurs between steady beats. <em>We are safe here, we are held and we are home.</em></p><p>It is too much to believe it.</p><p>But she does. Even if it defies reason and expectation, even as the scent of ghostly ashes awakens memories of yesterday, she trusts this sleeping man beside her. Trusts this place. It is too early for Stockholm Syndrome, a name that makes her snicker in her own internal monologue. This is something else, something various analysts would gladly pepper with all sorts of names.</p><p>For a moment she just watches Pelle, taking in his obvious bed head and how long his eyelashes are. How he looks peaceful, far off in that dreaming place. Unable to stop herself she reaches up brush the hair off his forehead, fingers sifting through the strands before she traces the line of his nose. He mumbles something in his sleep, shifting slightly, his hand tightening his grip on her waist. Instantly she pulls her hand away, suddenly shy and embarrassed by her own boldness. She cannot believe that she just did that.</p><p>Moving just enough so that she can look at the ceiling, at the now blue sky framed by the trap door and the flowers, her flowers, that are hung above her head. Sleep must reclaim her at some point for when she next opens her eyes, she finds herself meeting Pelle’s gaze. The idea that he had been watching her just as she had watched him stokes a fire within her. Something about his expression borders on reverential, making her feel like a bright and power creature.</p><p>A smile, soft and sure, drifts onto her features, bringing out a matching one on his face. “Hey,” she greets, voice raspy from sleep.</p><p>“Hej,” he returns, his fingers carding through the loose waves of her hair. “How did you sleep?”</p><p>It’s a such a simple question. One that she’s asked and been asked countless times, but a chord in her memory is struck despite it. She can’t remember the last time Christian had asked her that without her asking him first. It’s an unfair comparison. It would be unfair if they had just broken up — which they did, but more so. She shouldn’t think ill of the dead. Though this is less <em>ill </em>and more <em>accurately.</em> The way that she thinks of Terri in all of her good and bad parts.</p><p>“Um, good. God, I can’t remember the last time I slept that well without help.” This is true. For the first time in months her sleep hadn’t been plagued by nightmares, no haunting masks or cliffs, no taunting figures that won’t respond to pleading. Her sleep had actually been <em>restful. “</em>How did you sleep?”</p><p><em>“</em>That’s good, really good.”Pelle’s smile takes a goofy sort of turn, one that makes Dani’s own smile move the same way. There is something kind of absurd about the banality of this conversation after everything. “I slept well too which I think is to be expected given everything.”</p><p>Dani nods, not knowing the words to describe that completely foreign and utterly freeing feeling of yesterday. “Yeah. It was...a lot.”</p><p>Now it is Pelle’s turn to nod and for a moment they are just staring at each other, a wordless silence stretching between them. It is a comfortable silence, despite the weight of it. The kind of silence that speaks to a longstanding relationship, rather than whatever this is between them. Maybe the Hårga have a word for it, because Dani certainly doesn’t.</p><p>They are still holding hands. It hits Dani suddenly and she looks down at them, her fingers entwined with his. Absently she had started rubbing her thumb against the edge of his palm, thoughtless tracing swirls and circles. Immediately she stops the movement, but doesn’t pull away. A boldness strikes her as she stares at their hands, an odd urgency to share something that she has never told anyone. Maybe its easier because it is Pelle and it concerns him. There was all that happened between them last night, and before that. Somehow she knows he’d understand.</p><p>“I used to dream about you,” she admits aloud, a blush turning the visible skin of her chest blotchy. It is a deeper kind of intimacy, to share what was offered up in the dark. Lifting her gaze from their hands, her eyes meet his and hold them. Part of her desperately wants to look away, wants to pull her hand free and cover her face. For a moment she wishes that she could take it back, swallow the words whole and make like they never happened.</p><p>But they did.</p><p>A tenderness is rooted in his expression, in the crinkle of his eyes, the slightly relieved slump she’s now noticing in his shoulders. Like she’s just confirmed something he already knew, a shared hidden truth that both thought they were alone in, outsiders in a world of togetherness,no longer strays. His voice has a faint rasping tone to it when he finally speaks. “I dreamed of you too.”</p><p>Warmth spreads through her whole body, pleased right down to the tips of her toes. Something within her knew that this would be his answer, but hearing her own slightly wild sounding statement being matched suggests that whatever influence the Hårgans — her fellow Hårgans she supposes — were talking about might be real.</p><p>A giggle that is both mirthful and mildly hysterical escapes her. “It’s all so much, but not in a bad way.” Shifting, she releases his hand to better leverage herself against him, slow and largely without finesse, so that she is better able to press a soft kiss against his mouth. This kiss is the opposite of the ones they exchanged yesterday, a more languid affair that hints at many more to come. </p><p>Through the thin layers of fabric between them she can feel the semi-hardness of him. Rationally she knows that it could be a hold over from sleep, but the chance it is also because of her sets something slight in her. Moving slowly, deliberately, she presses her body against his and then pulls away slightly, an languid undulation that doesn’t provide the friction that the growing wetness at the apex of her thighs demands. She isn’t used to it being this easy with someone else, isn’t used to the man beside her being the one easily got her off with his hands the night before, no matter how many nights she woke after dreaming he had.</p><p>Her movements draw a divine sort of moan from deep in his throat, and Pelle breaks their lazy kiss to start to kiss way down her throat, his hands moving to pluck at her nipples. His teeth scrape at the pulse point low on her neck. The hissing gasp of pleasure that Dani makes is one that she’s made before, but this is the first time it’s been genuine. She can feel his smile against her skin before he kisses that spot immediately before gently biting down. Already Dani knows that she’s going to end up marked, wearing some sort of hickey that can’t be concealed like she’s 15 again. Only instead of embarrassment, she feels a sort of rush.</p><p>This time she grinds down a harder, her hand slipping into the waistband of his trousers to cup his rapidly hardening cock, giving it a deliberate stroke. Pelle swears softly, his own hands stilling like he lost his train of thought. Slotting her leg more firmly between his, she let’s go of him so that she can push him flat onto his back. No sooner is this done then she is straddling him, pressing a kiss to his mouth before sitting up. Looking down at him, she takes in his mildly wrecked expression, the heat in gaze.</p><p>“Do we have to get up soon?” She asks, her tone far more causal than their position suggests it should be. Pelle’s mouth open and closes wordlessly, his gift for words having momentarily fled him. His hands fall to her hips which she rocks experimentally, watching his expression change briefly, feeling his grip tighten.</p><p>Shit, she can’t remember the last time she was on top. It’s a position that she’s likes in theory and brief experimentation, but always felt self-conscious about, would get too in her own head to enjoy it fully. Easier to try almost anything but that.</p><p>This morning with the light falling down around her,with this man who is so many things, too many to proper fit together now, radiating so much adoration up at her that it feels wonderful. She’s so fully in her body, so connected to everything,but clear headed enough to know that there isn’t some lingering holdover from the tonics and tinctures she’s consumed over the last few days.</p><p>“No,” he shakes his head faintly, each word tinged with effort to keep steady. “No, today is a day for resting before the second half of Midsommar.”</p><p>Her hips still and Dani presses her palms flat against the bare skin of his chest, as if that will stop them from going clammy. Pelle must read the worry plain on her face, feel the different sort of tension that pulls her body taught on top of him as she sit upright a bit more.. Her heartbeat has sped up despite her previous beliefs in safety and home. Animal instinct to fight or flight will almost always win out.</p><p>“Don’t worry, äskling,” he soothes, drawing gentle circles on the skin of her inner thigh, the closest part of her at hand. The solid steadiness in Pelle’s blue eyes pulls her back. Slowly, but surely they start to breath in steady time. “It is a much quieter, more celebratory. There will be much for the ninety-year queen to do, I’m sure, but it is easier. So there is more time for us to do what we’d like.”</p><p><em>What we’d like</em> hangs in the air, sparking power. Dani can think of countless things she’d <em>like </em>to do, many of them unhelpful for moving forward in this new world that she’s found herself a resident of. She suspects – no she <em>knows – </em>that If she asked Pelle to hold her as she screamed and cried that he would without question. Both of those would be natural reactions to trauma and grief. However any urge she has to do so is only out of obligation. For the moment, intense emotions of that ilk have been burned away, scattered like dust on the wind.</p><p>Carefully she slides her right palm over until it rests over his heart. The tattoo of his heartbeat thrums up through his ribs, along her arm and straight to her own. She can feel the way her small motions make his heart stutter, his breathing catch.</p><p>If she could, could she pull his heart out, hold it in her cupped palms like a precious stone or helpless bird, would it belong to her. Would it even count as stealing if he lets her have it freely, like she thinks he already has.</p><p>Breathing deeply she bends forward and kisses him, her motions returning to their earlier slow rhythm, picking up speed as her sex slickens, his hands disappearing under her dress to part her folds, playing with her clit with an artist’s purposeful touch. At some point they both strip free of the last of their clothes, Dani remaining on top as she takes him inside her. Their coupling lacks the fumbling that accompanies all first times with a new partner, the halting back and forth as people learn one another. Despite the newness of it, it hardly counts as a first, simply a returning.</p><p>They are late for the midday meal, but no one says a word, the marks not fully concealed by clothing being noted and met with little more than knowing glances. </p><p>Who are they to question the doings of the May Queen and her Green Man?</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p><em>iii</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Midsommar does not end purely in fire. </p><p>The after is a quieter affair, the rituals smaller, gentler, then what precedes them.</p><p>For every death, there is a rebirth.</p><p>And <em>what</em> a rebirth it is.</p><p>Just as he knew she would, Dani flourishes within the family. It is still early days, but every movement seems to be lighter, her smiles easier to gain. A thirst for life has returned to her, the light in her that he has saw in only brief glimpses before seems impossible to dim.</p><p>He loves it. He loves <em>her </em>and he is not alone in this.</p><p>Pelle wishes that he could spend the rest of these festival days by Dani’s side. No, he wishes to spend the rest of <em>all</em> of his days by her side. It is a selfish thing to want, especially after she has come to them, stayed with them. The Ninety Year May Queen belongs to all of Hårga, is part of the family. But it is hard to not feel that at least a part of Dani belongs only to him, just as part of him belongs only to her.</p><p>It takes all of his strength to not beg to be allowed to follow her around, to watch as she works with the former queens to bless the rest of the fields, to offer to hold the various animals at they are brought before her. He has his own work to do, so he watches from a distance as she is carried away from him, so though he smiles after her, he is heartsick too.</p><p>But she comes back, finds him when he least expects it. When he’s tending to the garden, trimming runners from the strawberries one minute, the next she has come up behind him, pressing kisses to his shoulders, his neck, even his ears before he turns to face her. She forces him to sit on the earth between the rows before she straddles him, pressing a kiss to his mouth, grinding down against him until he slides his hands up from her waist to her breasts, leaving a trail of earth on the whiteness of her dress. Obvious evidence of their coupling that she will later smile and shrug off, both coy and pleased by the teasing.If she tells their sisters later how she pressed him back against the ground, sheathing him within her and riding him, face titled up to the sun as she reached her climax. The blissful smile on her face just before she came had almost be enough to bring him to completion. In the end, it had been the drop of her gaze to his face, the intense feelings he could see in her as she met his eyes that had led to him spilling inside of her.</p><p>And he finds excuses to be near her too. Beyondsitting as close to the head of the table as he is allowed, he drifts towards her in chores, clasping her hand when walking beside her.Once he catches her as she is leaving the lake after swimming with their sisters, snagging her by the wrist, giving her asweltering kiss before pulling her towards the shelter of a tree. The stooped branches, bending towards the water hide their joining, as he presses her into the mud of the bank, blanketing her with his body, covering her with kisses as he peels off her clothes. All the better to worship her, bring her back to the soil of a country that she has always belonged to.</p><p>They are so transparent in their attachment, the way that they are pulled into each other’s orbit, that the family smiles and gives each other knowing looks, familial jibes and words of encouragement. In a span of days, Dani’s ear for the language — both Swedish and the family’s affekts — has allowed her slightly in on what is going on. This is obvious from the faint blush that stains her cheeks after Valentin makes a more salacious comment, earning him a pinch from Dagny.</p><p>If Pelle did not already know what a match that they were, had not seen it written out in Grandmother Siv’s hand all those months ago, then he would likely exercise more caution. Rationally he knows that he probably still should, given how close they still are to the burning away of that which weighed both of them down. That Dani’s vulnerability and openness is a strength, a virtue, but he has his own temptations towards rashness, a fear that when the festivities conclude, she will wake up and want nothing to do with any of them. That her presence is only temporary.</p><p>Reminding himself to take care, to be steady, becomes a soft silent litany as the final night of the festival nears. It slips out of him after he gets a sliver half the length of his thumb in the base of his palm while helping to build one of the nine bonfires that will ring the stage. As he lets Valentin remove it with a knife, Pelle flashes on Dani’s mouth pressing a kiss upon the wound, like he’s a child and still believes that such things can make it magically better. Perhaps she does have that amount of magic in her touch.</p><p>“Careful, lover boy,” Valentin teases after, cleaning off the blade and pocketing it. “Our May Queen would think you don’t know how to properly use your hands.”</p><p>It’s the sort of comment that makes him think of Ingemar, grief temporarily souring any happier contemplations. Ingemar, his other half, would have made a joke like that, would have offered council. But his brother had offered council, had told Pelle to be happy, to have faith in Dani’s choosing him even before that had been done.</p><p>Now it is his time to prove his faith in <em>her.</em></p><p>Dusk is settling in when the family comes together to close out Midsommar. Their festival clothes, while still predominantly white, now are streaked through with greens and reds and golds, heralding that summer is now starting her dance towards autumn. All bright, golden things must eventually slumber and they were reminders that what was planted in the spring and tended to now, will bear fruit in later seasons to come. None of them will see the next ninety year Midsommar, but knowing that they have done what they must is enough to see them through.</p><p>Tonight, however, tonight is night for tending to futures most closer at hand.</p><p>All of Hårga gathers on the green on the opposite side of the festival grounds from where dark earth that once the Fire temple still smokes. Jovial music plays, the tempo of drums, heralding when the May Queen and her attendants arrive. Pelle is standing at attention near the stage, the green leafy crown on his head much simpler than the one he wore four days ago. He turns in sync with the rest of his family, scanning for a glimpse of the May Queen, for Dani as the crowd parts to them them into the circle towards the stage.</p><p>When he sees her, his breath is taken away. She is resplendent in white and green and red, flowers embroidered up from the hem, all along the train that follows behind her. This time she is dressed for movement, her bare arms exposed to the cooling evening air, her hair left loose. The most elaborate thing about her is the crown on her head, flowers woven to look like the sun’s rays, like she is radiating floral light. Unlike when she was crowned, Dani moves with a steadiness, her chin held high, a faint smile on her face as she makes her way to the stage. Pelle knows the exact moment when she notices him, her smile brightening, lips twitching like she has to stop herself from saying his name.</p><p>It reassures him that what he will do is the right choice. The only choice.</p><p>Grandfather Sten calls them to attention once Dani is settled on her throne, music and chatter ceasing as well.</p><p>“As we close out our ninety-year Midsommar, we do as we have done each summer and will do for many summers to come. Nine fires shall be lit from our eternal flame and at least nine shall dedicate themselves by leaping over them,” Sten pauses, smiling as he allows for the cheers and smattering of applause that meets this statement. Only nine leaps of faith are required, but often more attempt it. Pelle lets out his own laugh, clapping along with the rest. Once the noise has settled down, Sten continues. “Should the object of their dedication be another of our family and that person accepts their dedication, then our May Queen will perform a blessing upon their union as she will bless the dedications of those who wish to dedicate themselves to something less literal. All blessings and dedications shall last for as long as those involved wish it too, but must be renewed each year.”</p><p>Grandfather Sten steps away, allowing for Grandmother Six to take his place. With her loud, authoritative voice, she solemnises what is to come, signally for the nine torch bearers to get into place beside each of the pyres. A single drum starts beating as her words taper off, finally ending with each bonfire being lit at once. The largest of them, the one directly in front of the stage is the one that Pelle assisted in building. It will be this one that he will leap over.</p><p>One by one members of family step up towards the bonfires. Most of them are young, Some are new young adults who will be leaving on pilgrimage shortly and make their dedications to the new paths and explorations. The majority make their leaps and dedicate themselves to another member of the family, with the ribald applause and merriment that goes along with that. The required nine is easily met, the number closer to eighteen by the time Dani finishes her last blessing, her smile wide as she says the now well-worn words. They sound like music to Pelle’s ears.</p><p>All of those before him have picked the smaller fires. The biggest has remained studiously unbounded. Everyone knows that this will not do. Every fire should have at least one jump over it for the good fortune to be enough.</p><p>“Are there any others?” Grandmother Siv asks, eyes sweeping the crowd who are now mingling, a little less rigid than before as summer beer and other drinks have started being passed around. Her gaze lands on Pelle who nods, raising his hand. She smiles warmly at him, nodding her agreement before gesturing to the fires.“Then go, my child. The last leap is yours.”</p><p>Following that instruction, Pelle looks at Dani once more. She is sitting up a little straighter in her throne, hands on the arms of the chair. He gives her a reassuring nod before disappearing on the other side of the flames. A murmur and a smattering of cheers greets him when they realise that he will leap the greatest fire. That just as he brought them their new blood May Queen, Pelle will ensure that good fortune will continue one in this last closing act.</p><p>The fire is warm, sweat breaking out on his skin as he stands in front of it, watching the flames dance, plotting where he should leap. He has done this before, the summer before he first left Hårga. Between memory muscle</p><p>Her eyes are fixed on him, he knows this without seeing, her expression regal, almost placid, save for the worry he can see in her eyes. Or perhaps he is merely placing it there, inserting what he wishes to see rather than what actually is.</p><p>Taking a deep breath, he keeps his eyes fixed on his target, his heart’s desire. Steady and true, that is all he needs to be. Trust and the rest is simple.</p><p>Then he leaps.</p><p>Fire laps at his bare feet, heat a nearly concussive force against his soles. He can hear the crackle of it, the snap of twigs and logs, smell the singed ferns from his crown. It is dangerous to leap, even more so when decked out in greenery. He would it a thousand times if she asked him too.</p><p>Just when it seems like he miscalculated, that his leap isn’t long enough, not powerful enough to get him over the flames, that he will have burns to show for his folly, that is when he lands. One stumbling step, then another, bare feet cooled by dew soaked grasses before he falls to his knees, breathless but successful. Almost in slow motion, Pelle watches as Dani does a leap of her own, up from the throne, tripping lightly off the stage towards him. Her gown flows out around her like water, waves of red and white and green streaming behind as she moves to him.</p><p>“My Queen, my Dani, I pledge my…” he is cut off by her mouth on his, her small hands clasped to his cheeks. He breathes in the scent of her through her crown of flowers, tastes the salt of her tears. Proof of her worry shouldn’t make his heart leap into his throat, but it does. His hands grasp her waist, pulling her towards him.</p><p>“I accept,” she breathes against his mouth as she presses her forehead against his, knocking both their crowns askew. When she repeats her acceptance, her voice is loud enough for others to hear. The noise of the family’s impromptu toast and cheers is a wave rushing towards them as everyone crowds around them, holding the pair of them close. Grandmother Siv encourages Dani to say the blessing, for even the May Queen isn’t exempt from tradition.</p><p>This time it’s Pelle who kisses her as soon as the blessing complete, a perfect symmetry.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p><em>iv</em>.</p><p>The Rotvälta is left, gently covered with a woven fabric the colour of sand. The sacred flame is picked up, piece by piece. A line of torches, a parade of people on foot, and then by boat, streaming back towards the permanent village. Her home, new and solid.</p><p>A few will stay behind, taking the trucks back with things that are too heavy or cumbersome to carry. A rota for those who will guard the Rotvälta, who will protect the sacred festival grounds, apparently exists, the duty spread out amongst the workers.</p><p>Given that Dani is the ninety-year May Queen, it is she gets to lead the procession along with Grandmother Siv. This time her crown is simpler, little more than a few spare branches and leaves woven into a circle, and she is the only one wearing it, her hair flowing loosely around her shoulders.</p><p>Her newfound sisters, the most recent queens, trailing softly behind her but bear no torches. Neither does Pelle who walks in line with Father Odd, not much further behind. The nine lit torches dot the procession, all the back to Grandfather Sten and one of the older children who end the line.</p><p>It is so early that it can still be called night rather than morning. The day prior had been spent cleaning up, shutting down the festival village, packing away those things that will not be needed for many months, making bundles of the few things that need to be brought back to Hårga proper by hand rather than in one of the trucks.</p><p>The journey takes longer than Dani thought it that it would, though her sense for distance is completely adrift in this place. Once, during the feverish time she had spent packing, she had looked up the region on Google maps, taken in the patchwork of streams and lakes and forests, how it nothing was completely mountainous nor was it flat. Peopled, but sparsely so. More like rural Minnesota in that regard, but also nothing like it. For one thing, there didn’t seem to be single golf course for several hundred miles.</p><p>As dawn breaks, a collection of brightly painted farmhouses comes into view. A gasp escapes her and she stops in her tracks, torch still aloft, eyes trying to take in the entire site. It is a setting from a fairytale, but solid in a way that the festival grounds felt idyllic. Far too ephemeral to be lasting, but it surprises her to see what else there is.</p><p>Hanna comes up beside her, smiling broadly, following the movements of Dani’s head as she takes it all in.</p><p>“I don’t know why I’m surprised, but I am?” Dani tells her, marvelling and utterly struck. Hanna hooks her arm with Dani’s free one, encouraging her to continue to walk. Siv nods approvingly, leading them onward towards what Dani surmises must be the main village, laid out like a magnificent wheel.</p><p>“Because you are seeing your new home. It is not unusual to be surprised when you see a place your heart has a longed for in the flesh for the first time,” Hanna offers with a shrug as the weave between the centre most cluster of buildings.“Besides, the painted buildings <em>are</em> rather beautiful.”</p><p>They <em>are</em> beautiful. Bright jewel toned buildings, decorated with ornate carvings and delicate paintings. They are old, but they are well maintained. <em>Loved</em>, Dani thinks as she tries to absorb it all. <em>This place is loved.</em></p><p>In the middle rests a massive stonework dome, like a hearth, a heart in the beating centre of the Hårga. A perfect place for an eternal flame to live. It is open at the top as well as possessing a door in the side of it, which Ulla comes forward to open when Siv stops in front of it. Raising her own torch into the air, Siv lets out a keening shriek before shoving the burning torch sides where it reignites the banked embers and dormant wood. Someone must have set it up earlier, tended to the flame while the rest of the village was away.</p><p>Of course. That shouldn’t surprise her either.</p><p>Once Siv steps back, she beckons Dani closer and waits. Momentarily at a loss, Dani quickly realises that she is meant to do the same thing. Letting out her own animalistic noise, a call out to the bigger world, she bends down and shoves the torch inside. It catches on another bundle of twigs with a satisfying <em>whoosh</em>. Straightening up, she looks to Siv for guidance. The older woman nods once more.</p><p>“Very good, now come, my child, explore your new home. Let your sisters help you.”</p><p>Immediately Karin and Hanna are beside her once more, looping their arms in hers. Dani cranes her head to look for Pelle, wondering where he is, if she should go to him. Catching sight of him, he offers her shrug and a smile, a whimsical suggestion that fighting against their sisters is a fruitless act. <em>I’ll meet you later</em>, he mouths before taking his pack off with some of the others, the family already dispersing to settle in.</p><p>“It has a name,” Karin whispers conspiratorially, leaning in as the three of them weave between the buildings. The village is comprised of three parts. This one is the innermost, the furtherest back from the main roads. It is a place that is only ever seen by the family.</p><p>“Does it?” Dani is charmed by that idea. It really does make the whole place feel like a storybook, dark and a little confusing, not the sanitised versions that she grew up with. “What is it?”</p><p>“Hjärtat Sanningsgård,” Karin answers, the words slipping off her tongue like a spell, sweet, but also faintly . Only the last syllable is at all familiar to Dani, but she tries her hand at repeating it anyways, tripping over the middle. She makes a face.</p><p>“No, it’s good! You will have it in no time,” Hanna encourages. “Just practice. Now, let us show you to our house.”</p><p>By the time that Dani finds Pelle again, has the space to ask him what it means, the question has fled her.</p><p>When she does learn it a week later, repeating it while working with Grandfather Arne, he beams at both her improved pronunciation and the question as to the translation.</p><p>“But, my dear, surely you already know! Heart’s Truth. That is what all the Hårga call our home.”</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p><em>v</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Siv comes to tell them that there will be an inquest.</p><p>“Standard procedure, nothing to worry about.”</p><p>She spare them the details, protects them with not knowing more, but Pelle can imagine what they are. How the remnants of the guests were disposed of, the ephemera they brought with. Mobile phones brought to place where they could get one more ping off before dying, backpacks artfully shredded and destroyed. He suspects two rail tickets were bought in Connie and Simon’s names. There are ways to bury the truth in a way that mitigates harm.</p><p>“Oh. Should we be worried? Is someone going to want to talk to us?” Dani bites lower lip, fidgeting in an open display of worry. Pelle absently reaches out to place a steadying hand in the small of her back, as much to ground her as his himself.</p><p>This was always a risk. It is one thing to bring new bloods into the community for brief stints, to send them back confused and disoriented, but otherwise unharmed. Or for new bloods to choose to stay, to become a part of Hårga permanently, as there have a been few during Pelle’s lifetime.</p><p>But bringing guests for <em>offerings</em> were always going to carry danger. These guests were never going to be returning home. Pelle has already been preparing himself for this news, knowing that their absence would need to be reported. He had watched as Father Odd had packed up their backpacks, stowing them in one of the trucks to be disposed with.</p><p>But hearing of the outcome of their reporting, investigation into a purposefully made trail makes it all the more real.</p><p>“Perhaps,” Grandmother Siv answers sagely, her calm tone a balm against the greater worries that plague him. “Talking to both of you would not be out of the standard line of inquiry, given that you both know the missing trio.”</p><p><em>Three</em>. The inquest must only be for the three that he brought. Of course. Americans are never good at having patience, at letting mysteries breathe. Instead they glorify the persistent hunt for truth, oblivious to whatever fragile things are destroyed in the process.</p><p>Pelle curses silently. It would be easy to say that New York was a mistake, that picking Americans had been too great of a risk. But the glaring proof that it had been anything but a mistake is standing beside him, dressed in the comfortable green work clothes of a child of summer, beautiful as ever. Nothing that involves Dani could ever be a mistake, no matter what the outcome.</p><p>“Okay.” Another repetitive nod from Dani. “I understand.”</p><p>Stepping closer to Dani, pressing his body against hers, Pelle nods as well. “Yes, Grandmother. Please let us know if they want to speak to us.”</p><p>“I will.” She dismisses them with a wave of her hand.</p><p>Dani drifts away from him, murmuring about helping with the baking and he lets her go. She needs time and so does he. His mind is turning over any possible mistakes that he could have made, ways that he wasn’t careful enough that cannot now be undone.</p><p>Briefly he thinks of the day that they arrived in Sweden, a conversation between Dani and Christian on the airplane playing out in his mind. They had been speaking low, trying to not be overheard nor disturb those who were trying to get a few more minutes of rest as the plane descended. The flight attendants had just distributed the customs and immigration cards and Pelle had filled his out easily. The twin benefits of returning to his country of origin and the only souvenirs he was bringing being those that didn’t need to be declared. Whose value was far greater than a simple krona amount.</p><p>Across the aisle an argument had been blooming. Tapping his pen against the tray table, he had tuned his ears towards it, an easy task given how much his very being was tuned to Dani already. Weeks later this memory has already started to fade away, filed into his long term memory with the chaff of other semi-useless pieces of information. Pacing around by the lumber mill, he finally manages to recall the critical gist of their argument. Whether or not they should fill out only one card between them, approach the desk as a pair. Dani had been in favour of doing just that, but Christian, ever dismissive of the petty harms, had pointed out that they weren’t married so they had to go separately. Something about it being less of a headache.</p><p>Pelle leans against the building, suddenly relieved. One less piece that links Dani to Hårga, that suggests that there were four travelling in that group rather than three. For the time being, she is safe from prying eyes, safe from questions she isn’t ready to answer. Judgement she might not want to face.</p><p> </p><p>He finds her later sitting on her bed, staring at her mobile phone, still locked in the palms of her hands.</p><p>“Amy texted and asked me when I get back from Sweden. Asked me how much fun I’m having.” Dani’s voice is soft, the bubbly fire of her spirit temporarily banked. Pelle can feel her retreating, hiding away and he desperately wants to coax her back out into the light. He sits beside her on the bed.</p><p>“Oh yeah?” He didn’t expect her to cut off all her friends, but he hasn’t been checking on her use of her phone. He trusts her and despite the temptation, he doesn’t want to break her trust in him. He is certain it would not be an easy thing to win back.</p><p>She nods, placing the phone facedown on the beside table before turning to look at him, smiling tiredly, but genuinely.“I told her that I love it here. That I’ve never been happier.”</p><p>Her lack of comment about whether or not she gave a date of return claws at him, but he lets it go unremarked upon.</p><p>He trusts Dani. He has given his whole heart to her and can feel her heart being offered up to him. Keeping that precious object safe is the only thing he wants, even more than he wants to keep his family safe from those who would destroy their traditions, misunderstands their values. Who argue over pitifully small things.</p><p>“Good. I am glad to hear that. Though I think I had some idea already,” he teases, leaning forward to kiss her as she laughs, giving him a playful swat which he returns with a gentle tickle under her ribcage. </p><p>Later when she’s in the washroom brushing her teeth, Pelle will pick up her mobile phone and stare at it. The wallpaper of the lock screen is no longer a photo of Christian, but rather a picture of wildflowers growing in one of the nearby fields. The change pleases him, another sign that she has put Christian into her past, sealed that box away. His thumb hesitates over the home button. Out of habit he had memorised her passcode, could easily break in and check her messages to her friends.</p><p>Instead he sets her phone back down, retreating to his own wardrobe, taking his shirt off to prepare for bed, ashamed of his temptation.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p><em>vi</em>.</p><p>“I have to go back.” Her voice cracks, showing the seams she feels on her skin. The way she’s crumbling apart. She grasps his hand, holding it to her heart.“<em>We</em> have to go back.”</p><p>“Why? What world exists for you there?”</p><p>“Because I have a life there. Or parts of a life. People don’t just vanish. There’s more questions if I don’t go back than if I do. Please, please don’t make me go alone.”</p><p>She wants to stay. Oh how she wants to stay, but she can’t. She can’t leave a gaping hole and a trail of breadcrumbs to where she went. It’s too dangerous to her new family, to the man she loves. And she does love him, almost despite herself. Maybe she always has, from before their first meeting, from the conversations at other people’s parties,from before part of her world fell apart.</p><p>They should be sleeping. Instead Dani lifted the quilt of her bed, beckoning for him to join her. He had, of course, with only a little teasing about her feet being cold as she’d curled into him. Two bodies in a bed just meant for one, overlapping and willfully ignoring that it is a bit too warm for such things. It is just as well. Closeness is what both of them need, feel their heartbeats through the night.</p><p>Since the day that Siv told them of the inquiry, the nightmares have returned. They’re not as frequent as before she came to Sweden and the shape of them has changed slightly, but the effect is no less powerful. Bears and fools, gas masks, people shouting angrily, a sense of being hunted waking her at odd hours, waking him as well. Nights when he whispers to her, sometimes in Swedish, sometimes in English, telling her stories and secrets of the world in the dark, anything to ease her into sleep. Dani appreciates it, more than she has the words to really say.</p><p>Despite how effective the sleeping draught that Mother Ulrika has made her, the last thing she wants to become dependent on it.She hasn’t taken a single Ativan since being crowned over two weeks ago, not needing to be rescued from emotions that overwhelm her. Not feeling like she’s drowning with nothing to hold onto. Twice she’s nearly texted her therapist, proud of the healthy growth she’s experienced, the breakthrough after months of being awash in grief and wondering how she could’ve saved them. Twice she’s deleted the texts before she could send them. She isn’t ready to open that door back up just yet, if ever, no matter how much validation she craves.</p><p>Tears slip down her cheeks in the dark as she kisses him and she swears she can taste his. She savours the feeling of his beard against her cheeks, the smell of his skin, all wood and paper and earth, the weight of his body against hers. All small pieces that add up to a massive whole that she never wants to give up.</p><p>“Please,” she whispers against his mouth, making promises with her body that she swears she will keep.</p><p>“Never.” His voice is gruff, thick with grief and arousal. He answers her with his body, pulling her closer to him, tucking her head under his chin. “I will always follow you. But we can’t just yet.”</p><p>“Okay.” She isn’t ready anyways. In the dark they are safe. Here they are safe, cloistered from the world that has harmed her, that takes and never gives. There are unfinished things in her life and she means everything she said. But summer isn’t over yet.</p><p>There is still time. And for now that is enough.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p><em>vii</em>.</p><p>The nights are growing longer when they come.</p><p>It has been bliss, relaxed and perfect. Dani has slipped from the skin of her old life, found a new set of proverbial furs to cloak herself in, a place to rest her head. Even with her fears and insecurities, the lack of any proverbial soldiers at the gate, any real follow-up have started to take the edge off. Her sleep has started to strengthen on its own once more.</p><p>An entire month has past since Midsommar, since the darkness was burned away. The summer sun has brought a golden tint to her skin, made her freckles more apparent. She had tucked her face into her hands when Pelle commented on them, adolescent insecurities made fresh.</p><p>“No, no, you misunderstand me, äskling,” he had pulled her hands away and kissed her nose, then her cheekbones, then finally her mouth. “I love them. I love all of you.”</p><p>It’s the end of July.</p><p>A woman’s scream alerts them that something is not as it should be. In a rush, both Dani and Pelle sit upright in the field, both dirt smudged and breathless, him without a shirt as their heads turn in the direction of the noise. Ostensibly both had been tasked with light weeding, the kind that is only semi-necessary as summer begins her descent into autumn and the harvest. A chore that is lower on the necessary list of tasks to be completed, the kind suited to the young people who will soon enough be returning on pilgrimage.</p><p>“What was that?” Dani asks, gaze fixed on the pair of cars that have pulled up near the one of the main work buildings. Her back is pressed against his front and Pelle is certain he can feel her heart hammering. Or maybe that is just the echo of his own.</p><p>“I don’t know. It can’t be good,” he gropes around for his shirt, pulling it back over his head before getting to his feet. He offers his hand to her and she accepts the assistance. Once standing she reaches up to pull a stray piece of grass from where it was caught in his hair. The quiet domesticity of it spurs him to kiss her, her mouth warm against his. Ordinary enough, a simple thank you and a show of devotion rolled into one.</p><p>Hand in hand they make their way back towards the cluster of work buildings, set apart from the rest of the village, closer to where their road meets a barely larger one. A public face for any outsiders that might come on business. But those outsiders are always invited, always prepared for. These ones have come unannounced.</p><p>“Grandmother Siv will handle it,” Pelle reassures in a low voice as they draw near, possibly just as much for his benefit as for hers. Dani nods in agreement, knowing that the matriarch is more than capable of managing these interlopers.</p><p>But avoidance does no one any good and it certainly can’t last forever.</p><p>The instant that Dani lays eyes upon the screaming woman, she knows exactly who it is. It is Mark’s mother, her dyed red hair standing out like a fire alarm against the public farm’s rich sapphire blue paint. Despite the fact that Mark was Christian’s roommate for over two years, she’s never met the woman face to face, merely heard her voice crackling from Mark’s phone and seen the evidence of her visits around that shared apartment. She has even seen photos of this woman, smiling widely next to her youngest son, pinching his cheeks. It could be her imagination, but despite the height difference and the generous curves, the resemblance is plain. There is something about the line of the nose and cheekbones that not even a scream can take away.</p><p>Dani knows the reasons, understands why Mark was sacrificed, what good has come and will continue to come from it. But Mark’s mother won’t understand any of it and her knowing would only do harm. The raw animal grief is pouring off this woman, calling to Dani’s own grief and she can feel her eyes growing wet in empathy. Without meaning, Dani finds herself taking a step closer, wanting to offer up her own recollections of Mark, to wallow in the feelings with this woman. She stops herself. None of that would be welcomed, so Dani pulls herself away, back towards Pelle and the edges of the circle.</p><p>Someone must have called over to the private village, for Dani can see Sten and Irma and Mats getting out of a truck nearby. Siv is striding over, having appeared seemingly out of thin air. Her hair silver blonde hair is braided and tucked under a traditional cap, but the rest of her is dressed in more modern appearing attire, all dark greens and blues and practical boots.</p><p>One of the detectives, a tall blond man who appears to be in his early 40s, meets Siv halfway, walking with her towards his partner and Mark’s mother. He’s talking to Siv in rapid Swedish, his tone apologetic. He seems mildly put out by the scene. The moment that they are within earshot of Mark’s mother, the detective switches over to English.</p><p>“She insisted on coming in the car with us. We think it might provide comfort, even though there is nothing to see. We don’t mean to intrude.”</p><p>“No, we understand. We wish we had more to offer them in their grief,” Siv is thoughtful, ever the placating and nurturing matriarch, willing to provide a lie to a fellow mother and her grief.</p><p>A wave of relief rushes over Dani as she realises what this must mean. It confirms what she had started to suspect. That a lack of news regarding the inquiry had been good news. That meant that the investigators and search parties had found nothing, had concluded that there was nothing <em>to</em> find. That at least this time, people do vanish, tragic accidents not being entirely out of the norm.</p><p>Moving through the gathering crowd, close enough to remain within earshot, Dani finds Pelle again, standing with his arms folded across his chest as he briefs Sten on who this woman is. Of course he would recognise her. Mark was never shy when it came to his mother, never missed a chance to bring her up even if it was to complain. Almost as if he senses her without seeing her, Pelle unfolds his arms and reaches out a hand towards her, which Dani takes, clasping it with both of hers. Her fingers have just threaded with his, stepping closer and leaning in. She is still half lost in the swirl of Mark’s mother’s grief, trying to shake it loose so that she can provide any helpful insight into how the woman can be helped.</p><p>“Dani?”</p><p>A familiar woman’s voice, one she knows from awkward polite dinners and uncomfortable holidays, disrupts Dani’s thoughts just as she’s about to tell Sten her take on Mark’s relationship with his mother. Like an ice bath along her spine, her brain recognises it and she freezes, plays opossum on the off-chance that she disappear. But the instinct to respond to her name has already made her turn her head halfway. A crunch of boots against the hard gravel and the voice starts again, this time closer. This time there is no ignoring it.</p><p>“Dani Ardor, is that you?”</p><p>Lifting her chin, eyes wide with surprise and fear, she meets Pelle’s gaze. His expression is one of equal surprise, muddled with something else that Dani can’t quite name. He knows that she recognises the speaker too. That no amount of simple green peasant dresses and summer tans can hide her now.</p><p>Slowly Dani turns the rest of the way around, still holding Pelle’s hand as she offers up a shaken smile.</p><p>Christian’s mother and father are standing there, dressed in crisp creme linens and seersucker, like they are on their way to a safari rather rural Sweden. They are staring at her with shock and confusion, twin puzzled critical expressions on their faces.</p><p>“Hello, Dr. Hughes.” Dani nods at Christian’s mother, then at his father, taking a deep breath between each of them. “Dr. Hughes. It’s good to see you again. This is, um, unexpected.”</p><p>And just like that, Dani’s fire-won peace goes up in smoke, disappearing right before her very eyes.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A wee bit of a cliffhanger as we reach the true midpoint. As you might have noticed I have updated the number of chapters from four to five. During the process of writing this I realized that given all that I was doing and where I wanted to go, plus how damned wordy I was being made having only four parts a bit of a mess. So we are now operating on a five act structure, like I’m an Elizabethan playwright or something equally daffy. </p><p>This was originally a <i>much</i> longer chapter (we're talking ~14K) so I had to cleave it into two parts, which while lopsided are much more manageable this way. That does mean that part four should be up sooner than the two weeks it took me for this one. Ideally by next weekend.</p><p>Thank you everyone who has read and commented so far, both here and on the tumblrs. You are all such a fantastic little community to be a part of and I am entirely glad to be here. Hårga hugs to you all. </p><p>Like always, if there is anything glaringly wrong (because while I obsessively research, sometimes I mess with things for a) dramatic effect and b) because I am only human) then let me know. I'm also rusty as hell in my Swedish conjugation so if there's any issue there, please tell me and I will fix it right up! </p><p>Just give me all your thoughts anyways. Like the Addams family, I will gladly feast upon them.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. what survives in the fire?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>i.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Pelle recognises them just as Dani turns away from him, towards the woman whose confusion is plain on her face. The urge to pull Dani back, away from Christian’s parents, away from all that represent, rises up strong within him. Reflexively he tightens his grip on her hand, making his face a welcoming mask.</p><p>It is no surprise to him that he can identify them without Dani having named them. With ease he can conjure up an image of the two of them flanking a black robed Christian, coolly supportive, but not overly so. He had seen it in Christian’s bedroom, hanging on the wall above his desk, their eyes watching his every move even then. Beyond that, Pelle had seen their professional headshots, read their respective biographies on their respective universities’ websites, read a smattering of their work.</p><p>An evolutionary anthropologist (Christian’s father), who published pages upon pages of field notes on early Homo sapiens and their adaptive use of tools. A functionalist (Christian’s mother) whose emphasis on conflict theory dovetails neatly with her husband’s work, allowing her to contradict some of his conclusions in her own.</p><p>Even the wall of their grief for their son, permanently lost, does not fully keep these two professionals from starting to turn a critical, inquisitive eye towards the Hårga. Pelle bristles, protectively pulling Dani closer. If he could pull Hårga away from their gaze, then he would. Already they have seen more behind the curtain than he ever would want. These people will take their cursory sights, their gleaned understandings and be able to take them back out into the world. To twist Hårga into something other.</p><p>It’s irrational, the flame of anger that flickers up within him. Something that was supposedly burned away with the rest of the unholy affekts a month ago. Yet here it is, lit again, stretching a protective tendril out and suggesting any number of irrational things. <em>Get them out</em>, it beckons, <em>drive them away, drown them, burn them, do something, do something, do something.</em></p><p>The moment seems to last far longer in his mind than it does in reality. In the end, Pelle does nothing. Already he is in the current of the rising emotions, the tension that is clanging through the air like a bell.</p><p>He is helpless to stop it.</p><p>
  <em>Shit.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>ii.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Dani’s very presence is a sounding alarm, a clanging bell, a signal that all might not be what it seems.</p><p>What is worse is that she knows it. That there is no denying it. No point in pretending that she merely looks like the woman they knew as their son’s girlfriend. A long term, serious romantic partner with a troubled family history. Her presence in this village, amongst the Hårga, rather than lost in the woods is troubling.</p><p>She no longer has any parents to claim her, no sister to suggest she has gone on a trip and not returned. All of her family is here and she’s been found after so long.</p><p>What looked like an accident, a disappearance by three young men, all fit and able, but unfamiliar with the territory, now has been coloured with something a little darker. The innocent tragedy has been scraped away, revealing something else.</p><p>“You know her?” The other detective, a small dark haired woman with an elfin face and pixie cut to match, asks approaching from the other car. The one that helps Christian’s parents. She’s assessing the situation, already putting together pieces and seeing how she can make them work. When the Drs Hughes fail to immediately answer, she tries again, her attention on Dani now. “You know them?”</p><p>Dani nods, still holding Pelle’s hand, still largely wordless.</p><p>“She’s our son’s girlfriend,” Christian’s father clarifies, staring at Dani and looking more wrong footed than she has ever seen him. Despite his greying auburn hair, there is something in his posture and his slack jawed expression that is such the image of his son that it shakes Dani to the core. More than ever, it’s like seeing a ghost of the man that Christian never will become. “She’s an American as well.”</p><p>The detective’s eyebrows raise at this bit of news, and she casts a brief look at her partner. “We were told there were only three missing Americans. Not four.”</p><p>A deeply uncomfortable look crosses over Christian’s father’s face. It’s the look of a man who has been caught out, found to be not as in touch as he pretends. A crack in the façade of a well-intentioned man.</p><p>“That’s because I’m not missing,” Dani interjects, just touch hastier then normal. Eagerness to get past this is a burning flame in her chest, a bitter taste in the back of her mouth. “And I’m his ex-girlfriend. We broke up.”</p><p>A new wrinkle of in the fabric of the story. It’s not a lie, not really. She <em>is</em> no longer Christian’s girlfriend, had ceased to be that before she sent him to the flames, condemned him to share his fate with the bear. Over the past few weeks she’s come to realise that they had ceased to be a couple long before she saw him with Maja, before their trip here, possibly before Terri died. They were just a couple of people who used to be more together and were refusing to let themselves be less, to slip into the past tense. The clarity of hindsight, muddled with the objective reasoning that her schooling has given, has made her wonder what took them both so long.</p><p>It’s hard to give up, is the best explanation she has been able to muster. It’s hard to know when freedom is not the same as failing.</p><p>The male detective breaks away from Siv, coming to stand next to his partner who appears the be his opposite in everything. Studiously he cocks his head to the side, examining first Dani and then Christian’s parents. Even Mark’s mother seems to have gathered that there is something else going on, her hysterical screaming finally dying off.</p><p>“What’s all this?” The male detective asks, probably already half-knowing the answer.</p><p>“Another American,” his partner answers, gesturing to Dani. “Ex-girlfriend of one of the missing hikers.”</p><p>Dani notes two things: one is that they are speaking in English, presumably for her benefit and the benefit of the grieving parents. The other is that how the detective says <em>missing</em> instead of <em>dead </em>even as her tone suggests that dead would be the better answer. It’s an act of kindness, an offering of hope when there isn’t any to be had.</p><p>The male detective is pulling a slim notebook from his back pocket, flipping through the pages quickly before stopping. He taps the page in front of him. “We weren’t told that there were four in the travel party. Only that three visitors went out on a hike and did not return. No signs of foul play, search organised and assisted by their original hosts,” he reads, before flipping over to the backside of the sheet. “Only small signs of broken trail markers, a campfire that had gone out, usual stuff.”</p><p>A choking sob burbles out of Mark’s mother, likely brought on by the casual reading of the notes. It is likely nothing that she hasn’t heard before, but Dani knows from her own encounters with various investigators after her birth family’s deaths that time doesn’t make hearing the grim details any easier to bear. Her heart goes out to the poor woman once more.</p><p>“That is all correct,” Grandmother Siv adds with a nod, her hands clasped in front of her like a gentle, but firm school teacher. She is not the tallest in the group, far from it, but the older woman radiates a soothing strength, like a beacon. “We only had them in our community for a brief time, but it was an enlightening and wonderful time. We were sorry when they did not return to us before continuing on their travels.”</p><p>Dani watches as Siv moves towards Mark’s mother who watches her with a slack-jawed and red-eyed expression, still worn raw. They can’t be too far apart in age, the way that their utterly different, incompatible lifestyles is being worn by them makes it hard for Dani to discern. As she watches, Siv outstretches her hands to Mark’s mother who hesitates a moment before taking them.</p><p>“We feel your grief as well. To lose a child, even for a moment, is an incredible pain,” Siv placates and Mark’s mother nods, tears streaming down her cheeks.</p><p>Without being told everyone gives the exchange room to brief, silence coating them apart from the noise from the still working mill. It is near midday, so even that is quieter than it would be later.</p><p>A prickling down her spine clues Dani into the fact that eyes are still on her. Looking away from the older women, she sees that Christian’s parents are staring at her, more openly confused than she’s ever seen them. The female detective skirts around them, also with her eyes on Dani.</p><p>“I have one question,” the detective says, her tone giving away that she has many more questions than just the one. She likely has a book of them, wants to put all the pieces together. “If you broke up, then why are you still here?”</p><p>Dani reflectively tenses, her grip on Pelle’s hand tightening so much that she hears a faint hiss of pain from him. That question is all at once the easiest and the hardest to answer. The one whose answer will only bring more questions, only cause more hurt for people who are pretending to not be hurting. But it has to be said, even if it will never bring back their son.</p><p>“Because I fell in love.” Her answer is calm, belying the racing of her own heart. It comes out of her easily and she feels to need to specify with what or with whom. They are likely already drawing their own conclusions, most of them wrong. “Why wouldn’t I stay?”</p><p>The male detective’s eyebrows lift, two blond tufts disappearing into his shaggy fringe. The female detective looks unimpressed by Dani’s answer. A laugh, dry and brittle breaks free from Christian’s mother, a mocking sound. Dani bristles, her neutral feelings towards the woman dissolving into a spiky sense of distaste.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Dr Hughes covers her mouth when attention is drawn to her, not sounding the least bit sorry. She looks bemused, like Dani is a dog performing a trick, a child asking for attention at a grown up party. “I’m sorry, but that sounds insane. Fell in love? With him?” She gestures towards Pelle, whose front is against Dani’s back now, inching ever forward to act as something of a shield. “There has to be more to the story. Otherwise you would’ve called us, spoken with us. You’re practically family, dear, and after losing so much why wouldn’t you come to us?”</p><p>Dani can feel her true family members stepping forward, leaning towards her without moving much. The protective energy that radiates off of them forms a shell, bolstering her even as part of wants to wither under this woman’s scorn. Once she would have crumpled easily, longing for praise from someone who was so successful in her field, who had her world together, who didn’t seem to break. Now she’s one of the last person Dani wants to be like.Pretending to not care doesn’t make life any easier.</p><p>“Why didn’t you call me?” Dani returns without aggression, simply curious, stepping away from Pelle just a touch, but remaining linked by their joined hands. Phones work in both directions after all and Dani is no longer alone and full of worry. She’s the ninety year May Queen. She is loved, she is cherished, she is held. Gently, she asks this woman who in another life could’ve been her mother-in-law a simple question of her own. “Why didn’t you think to look for me?”</p><p>A long moment passes as they both stare at each other, Dani’s eyes locked with Dr Hughes’. It’s a heavy silence, with Dani’s family all too willing to let it continue while the detectives and the other Americans shift uncomfortably.</p><p>And that is when Dr Hughes breaks, tears running down her cheeks, the weight of her own walls too much to continue to carry alone.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>iii.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Time seems to blur a bit on the edges, speeding up and slowing down simultaneously.</p><p>It would be impossible to notice the tension that roils through the Hårgans if one wasn’t a part of the community, wasn’t aware of how the work as various parts of a beating whole. Like any ecosystem, outside invaders can wreak havoc even if they are ultimately drawn out.</p><p>In the meantime there are certain roles to play. Questions and more questions, hysterics and offers of coffee and tea, fresh made buns. Welcoming, but not overly so. The detectives pried, drawing Dani and Pelle away from each other, both watching the other as they were led to opposite sides of buildings. Stories were repeated, again and again, small holes worried at. Pelle knows what they are looking for, these detectives. They want an excuse to go away, to leave the Hårga to their own devices once more, but know that they can’t. There are different sorts of rituals to be followed through on.</p><p>They don’t stay longer than four hours, hurrying the exhausted American parents back into cars, with promises to return. Tomorrow, the detectives say, sounding almost rueful. The American government is sending someone up from Stockholm. There will be more questions to answer then, different from the sort that were answered a month ago.</p><p>Dani wasn’t known to be there a month ago. Now she is and Pelle wants to hold her close, to burn her passport, to burn his. To keep them safe and hidden. But he won’t do that unless she asks. And there hasn’t been time for his queen to ask. </p><p>It is evening now, the sun starting to dip lower in the sky. The hours of darkness are growing steadily longer as the season fades away. They have retreated to back to the private village, to the meeting room connected to the matriarch’s house. Food and drink has been brought for them on trays, left on the tables. It is not unusual for the elders to meet like this, to close themselves off for the family briefly to consult with the Rubi Radr, with each other, to work through problems.</p><p>It is slightly more unusual to include Dani and Pelle, both in the summer of their lives, but this matter has always concerned them. More so now that there are more and more outside problems rising up.</p><p>“We were careful.” Pelle says running his hands through his hair, a live wire of conflicting energy, pacing back and forth along the length of the room. What he means is <em>I was careful. </em>And he was, or at least he tried to be. He did his due diligence. But all the care in the world cannot prepare them for the force of parents with money and influence, backed by a lifetime of entitlement and a government that indulges. The Hårga are a traditionalist community, naturalistic and in touch with the land, existing in both the modern and the old ways at the same time. The image they project to the world is one that is both wholesome and out of touch, seeming to only skim the surface of large problems. Leaning into the image of being flower children, as Dani once named them to Pelle, long ago and an ocean away, has done wonders to protect them. Assumption can be mighty shield when placed in the correct hands.</p><p>The elders are seated in their usual chairs at the long wooden table, like they are discussing the typical business of running Hårga, doing the typical every day dealings. This is anything but ordinary. They are unsettled, even Grandmother Siv’s placid and calm exterior cannot full hide her own mix of emotions.</p><p>The matriarch takes a steadying breath, a deep inhale and exhale that draws the other Elders in, a collect breath that Pelle finds himself drawn into as well. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Dani joining in from her perch on one of the stools.</p><p>“Yes, we were, but this is not an all together unexpected situation. Our offerings had connections, had lives. Even as fractured as the outside world is, it is not unreasonable to assume that they would be missed,” Grandmother Siv says after the cycle of breathes comes and goes.</p><p>“The authorities seemed satisfied with the results of the initial inquiry,” Grandfather Mats says, shuffling through the papers in front of him until he finds what he is looking for. He taps against a particular sheet. “We were most helpful, and they concluded as we knew they would, that it is difficult terrain for even the most familiar and experienced hikers. Three unfamiliar travellers could easily find themselves lost.”</p><p>The others nod. These are new details to both Pelle and Dani. He longs for the blissful ignorance of knowing without actually <em>knowing </em>all that had been done to leave as little connecting path. He had answered questions when called upon to do so, but the removal of the backpacks and other belongings had been the work of others.</p><p>“We even left remnants of fires, damaged personal affects. We were thorough,” Grandmother Irma adds, folding her hands into her lap. “My sister is right, even those as lonely as outsiders can still miss their own. We should have anticipated that their parents would want some closure.”</p><p>The conversation has been flipping back and forth between Swedish and English, the latter for Dani’s benefit. Pelle has been helping her practice, but he knows that the efforts of their sisters and brothers are more effective than his own. They have a tendency to get distracted when left to their own devices, eager to study and learn parts of each other rather than a new common tongue.</p><p>“It’s my fault,” Dani’s voice, with its clear unaccented English breaks through the chatter. “There was no way to prepare for what they would think of me being here. I should have told you guys that they would be surprised.”</p><p>What goes unsaid is why the Drs Hughes would be surprised to find the girlfriend of their only son still alive and in Sweden. Why they wouldn’t have called or texted her when he was reported missing. That even as disinterested as Christian’s parents had been, given how long Dani and Christian had been together, that they should have thought of telling her. But selfishness is not an uncommon trait. A willingness to not see or do the hard things is one that they share with their son. </p><p>“My child, we tried to shield you,” Grandmother Siv says, rising to her feet and moving around the table, to stand before Dani, resting her hand upon Dani’s cheek. The soft gentle comfort that a mother gives so freely, one that Pelle watches Dani easily accept. She belongs to them, he knows it, but seeing it play out again and again makes his heart swell. “Already you have been so much, are still so new to the family. We did not want you to relive those harsher parts of your past without our aid. We will not let you shoulder this blame.”</p><p>Dani nods, her own expression morphing into one of a resolved sort of calm. She alone is more secure, having come from a culture that clings to answers, that despises the mystery she now embraces. “No, I understand, I really do. It’s normal for them to have questions and I don’t mind answering them. I just don’t want anything to happen to you guys.”</p><p>“We understand. I know that this will be hard, but we have been tested before,” Grandmother Siv presses her forehead against Dani’s before stepping away, already setting to work on what must be done. “We will consult the oracle, I know that Ruben has been painting. Arne?”</p><p>“I will go gather his newest work for our interpretation,” Grandfather Arne says as he rises to his feet. As he passes by Pelle, the older man places a comforting hand on his shoulder, giving him an understanding look. “Take care, my son, we will weather this storm.”</p><p>Grandmother Siv opens a open a wardrobe set against the wall, opening drawers. Grandfather Sten is quickly up and at another cabinet, pulling out a bowl for salt and another for water, wordlessly in sync with Siv. For years Pelle has watched them perform dances similar to this, an intimacy stronger than those bonds of the family, but not in competition with it. One day he hopes that others will marvel at Dani and him the same way, but that bright future is under threat.</p><p>“We will consult the runes in the meantime, for clarity as we wait for tomorrow,” Grandmother Siv places a rolled-up cloth, the natural linen fibres yellowed with age, on the table followed by well worn wooden box. This is the start of a familiar ritual, the drawing and the reading of the runes that Pelle knows well, but Dani has never witnessed Grandmother Siv’s artful working of them. A quiver of anticipation for what she is about to witness, the eagerness he feels on her behalf runs through him. He casts a glance over at her, taking in her parted lips, her interested expression, how she is leaning forward even if she hasn’t yet risen from the stool. He wonders if she is waiting to be invited over, asked to join in.</p><p>Dani looks up and catches his eyes, her own shining as her mouth turns into a soft smile.With her palm up in offering, she extends her hand to him and beckons him closer even if they are not that far apart. The room would not allow for it. Like a moth drawn to a flame, he moves over to her, taking her hand and kneeling beside her, his jeans pressing against smooth wood floorboards, a contrast of old and new.</p><p>“I will do what I have to. For Hårga,” she pauses, gaze locked with Pelle’s. He feels his heart clench, knowing what she is going to be forced to do, imagining scenario after scenario of disaster. Of pain. Of being torn apart. So lost in his own fear that he almost misses her finishing thought. She must sense it which is why she squeezes his hand, wordlessly saying that this is for him as well.“For our future.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p><em>iv</em>.</p><p> </p><p>True to their word, the parents return the next day and this time they are accompanied by more than a pair of Swedish detectives. A bombastic American service officer has made the trek up from Stockholm, all intense energy and wiry hair as he buzzes around the open spaces, a gadfly in human form. He keeps repeating that he is there to help, but Dani knows that anyone that he is there to help does not include her family.</p><p>Try as she might to continue with her daily routine, everything has been disrupted. She is helping to wash dishes after breakfast when she is called down from the inner village to the work buildings. Ulla gives her a hug before she leaves, wishing her courage, before releasing her to Pelle who is waiting outside the door. Hand in hand they walk down to the work village, revelling in the last dredges of their quiet. While so much has already changed, Dani knows that what she feels for Pelle and vice versa remains just as true as ever.</p><p>As soon as they arrive, they are broken apart, Dani whisked away to talk to detectives and the American embassy rep.</p><p>“Can someone come in with me?” She asks as she sits down across from the detectives, cups of coffee and warm cardamon buns on the table between them.</p><p>“That’s why I’m here,” the American service officer chirps with a bright smile. His name is Greg, he told her as he shook her hand too tightly, making her knuckles crack. Her hand is curled in her lap, still throbbing faintly in pain. “Don’t worry about it.”</p><p>“Oh, okay,” is all that Dani can muster in response, trying to conserve her energy as she prepares for what is to come.</p><p>Even then, it isn’t enough. Question after question comes, wanting to know if she knows why the missing Americans went on a hike without her. Was there bad blood? She says that Christian is her ex, yet she came on this trip with him, why is that? Why did they break up? How long was she planning on staying?</p><p>Dani knows what they are looking for, these detectives. They are trying to ensure that there is nothing that has been missed, nothing that could be held against them should something darker be found out. Their energy suggests that they are playing an act, doing what it is expected rather than what they think is important. Every so often Greg chimes in with a question of his own, both for her and the detectives, interrupting the flow of the dialogue.</p><p>“People break up all the time. Christian saw Pelle and I kissing,” Dani thinks of her crowning, of Pelle’s mouth on her eyes, the surprise and the want within her. Saying it like this makes it sound tawdry, like something she should be ashamed of. But she isn’t and refuses to be. “But we were over before that. We just didn’t want to admit it.”</p><p>And that is the truth.</p><p>Hours later, she is released and stumbles blinking back into the afternoon daylight. She is weary down to her bones. She wants to cry and to scream, to lay down and sleep for hours or have someone braid her hair and hold her. All things she knows she can do as soon as she is back in the village, away from the circus that these parents have brought with them.</p><p>She is looking towards the lumber mill, scanning for Pelle or someone who might know where he is or even what time it is when she hears her name being called. It’s Christian’s parents, in a darker echo of yesterday. Today they are dressed in clothes that are in muted shades of red and brown, meant to blend in even as they stand out.</p><p>“We wanted to talk to you,” Christian’s mother says she strides over to Dani, Christian’s father right behind her. The wild thought to take a picture of the two them, something to share with Maja so that the younger girl can get an insight into features that could be passed along to her unborn child. It strikes her then that these two will be grandparents, will have their precious legacy passed along to a child who will never know if it. Who will be free as Christian never was.</p><p>Wouldn’t they, anthropologists both, get a smug satisfaction from their son becoming part of another culture’s rituals in the pursuit of knowledge? That he is another Michael Rockefeller, always searching and then found by something bigger than himself?</p><p>Dr Hughes places her hands on Dani’s shoulders, a paltry imitation of the maternal gesture. A stiffness creeps along Dani’s spine, a rigid return to who she burned away. She doesn’t want or need this farce. She doesn’t need to be condescended too.</p><p>“Danielle, you’ve suffered another trauma. Nathaniel and I were discussing it and we have decided that it really is best that you come with us back to Stockholm and the United States,” the older woman tells her.</p><p>Behind her Christian’s father nods, hands tucked into his pockets. “We went ahead and booked you a ticket on the same flight as us. Business class.”</p><p>He says this like it is a gift, a gesture of good will to their son’s girlfriend whom both of them had forgotten about, had neglected to mention or assumed was no longer part of the picture. It isn’t for her, none of it is. It is for them and their guilty consciousness over waiting so long.</p><p>Dani finds her voice. It’s a loud and thunderous thing. There is no pause, no vocal tics. Just Dani.</p><p>“It’s Dani. My name has never been and never will be Danielle.”</p><p>It’s her grandfather’s name, the original Danny Ardor passing on before Dani ever got to know him. A stroke carried him away, brought on by a furious combination of dubious habits, stress, and a badly dealt genetic hand. Her father told her that she had the same eyes as him, the eyes that seemed to always see more than others could. Now it occurs to her that her father and grandfather died at the same age, before either had time to prepare, a gross symmetry that she wishes she hadn’t picked up on.</p><p>“Thank you, but no.” Dani pulls Dr. Hughes’ hands from her shoulders, stepping back and away from them both. “Now please excuse me, I have somewhere else to be.”</p><p>And with that she turns on her heels, hurrying to lumber mill, eager to get away from them, to just be able to breathe once more.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>v.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>It speaks to how much this past month has changed her that Dani doesn’t even think of the thinness of the walls, the closeness of other beds, the people in their own various states of restfulness and awake.</p><p>They are in his bed tonight, instead of hers, though at this point there is not much of a difference. They ebb and flow between them, no longer bothering to pretend that they will spend the night sleeping alone.</p><p>At Yule they were supposed to move into their own room, with a bigger bed and a touch more privacy, a shared space that belongs to them. Pelle had been eager for it, had hoped they would get the room with the eastern facing window, where the sun filters in like a soft hand to wake them. He knows that the couple who currently occupy it, Olaf and Mari, will be moving to the Autumn House at the equinox leaving it free. Without consulting any of the others, Pelle had brought Dani up there, using his words to sketching their next few years together in that room. She had laughed and thrown her arms around him, offering her own opinions before kissing him sweetly. It had taken everything he had to not take her right then and there, on the bed where Olaf and Mari had likely done the same thing hours earlier.</p><p>As the realisation of what is on the verge of being lost is sinking in, the fear of it burying itself in his heart, working out in his movements. Every kiss is a promise to the universe, to her, every thrust and movement a quiet claim being laid. He can feel her doing to the same thing, hooking her legs behind his back, pulling him closer to her, saying his name like its a prayer.</p><p>When she had found him that afternoon, she had been like a thread on the edge of snapping. He had held her as she had cried into his shoulder, cried along with her for what they lost, for what they were experiencing now. For the threat that they were under from forces beyond their control. So many thoughts had run rampant through his mind, each possibility so tempting but equally fruitless. Running, taking Dani’s hand and leading her into the woods where they could live and hide until all of this had blown over. He knows these woods, could lead her without a trace back to the summer village. The family would make a secret of them, would leave them food and spirits like they were the hidden folk, protectors that needed appeasement. The runes that Grandmother Siv had drawn had suggested ultimately they would get through this, that the future was just waiting to break, a bright and glorious thing. They told of a hardship, of yet more suffering and Pelle had recoiled against it. Hadn’t they both suffered enough?</p><p>No good can come from forcing a future, even one as longed for as theirs.</p><p>As he finishes, feeling the fluttering finish of her own orgasm around him, Pelle presses his lips against hers in a furious kiss. There is the taste of salt on her lips, from the tears that she’s shed. Her eyes open, green meeting his blue as she moves her hands to cradle his cheek, brushing away his own tears with her thumb.</p><p>It feels like a good-bye.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p><em>vi</em>.</p><p> </p><p>In the end, Dani’s decision is all but made for her.</p><p>Places are set, roles are doled out, and everyone is waiting. Someone has to act first. It’s been two days since Mark’s mother stumbled screaming from the Swedish detective’s car. Two days since peace fractured, like an egg that’s cracked and starting to ooze out. There is only so much that Hårga can be prepared for, only so many offers of comfort and solace, mentions of how they tried to give directions, but the terrain can be difficult for even the most experienced of hikers to navigate. It is so easy to get turned around. The Swedish detectives ask for more time to draw their conclusions, clearly under pressure from the US government who is in turn pressured by the parents. Dani heard that even Josh’s parents are getting back involved now, encouraged by Mark’s mother.</p><p>Greg the cheerful diplomat pulls Dani aside, using the same placating tone that she has heard more times that she cares to count. His hand is on the crook of her elbow, his features arranged into empathetic concern that is too intense to be fully genuine.</p><p>“Look, I’ve been talking to the rest of my team, and we believe it is in the best interests of everyone if you come back to Stockholm with us. Just until we get a little more clarity on the…situation,” he says, making a gesture with his hand to indicate the farm around them. Greg’s tone tells Dani that this is less of a request, more of a demand. She’s still here on a visitor’s visa, has no legal recourse to fight whatever is going on. She’s complicit, even if they don’t know it. There is the hope that in going with, in playing along, she can keep outsiders from ever finding out.</p><p>The sun is shining too brightly.</p><p>Her heart is breaking.</p><p>It should be storming. The weather should be a rainy, gross, mess of a day. The kind that produces mud that goes up the backs of a person’s legs, getting into their kneecaps. The kind of day that lingers.</p><p>It is unfair how beautiful it is when her world falls apart once more.</p><p><em>Beg me to stay. Tell me not to go out into that storm. Help me bury the bodies of these interlopers who don’t understand. </em>She’s screaming it in her silence, tears down her cheeks, as she looks at her family, at the love she’s found and needed. At Pelle. It was always him even if she didn’t know his name, didn’t have and still doesn’t have a word for it.</p><p>But submission comes easier when it’s tinged with fear. And Dani <em>is</em> afraid. Afraid of what could happen to her, to the peaceful solace of Hårga, to her new family if she were to fight this.</p><p>Instead she nods, pulling her cardigan tighter over her shoulders, shielding herself against an invisible wind. “Okay.” She nods again, tightening her jaw. “Okay. I, um, should get my stuff.”</p><p>“Don’t worry about it,” Greg dismisses with a wave of his hand. “I talked to one of the older guys, Stan, I think his name is, and he’s going to have someone bring your stuff over to us. Oh look, here it is now.”</p><p>The speed of all of these happening catches Dani off-guard. She wants more time, she has so many farewells to give, so many hugs, and tears to be shed. She wants to make promises and assurances that this is only temporary, that she doesn’t need to bring everything with her. She is coming back.</p><p>Turning she sees Karin holding her backpack, dressed in a sunny yellow shirt and jeans. Wordlessly Karin hands it to Greg without asking if he’s prepared to take it, letting go of the bag so that she can wrap Dani in a hug.</p><p>“Don’t worry, my sister,” she whispers in Dani’s ear, her voice tear filled. “We will bring you home.”</p><p>Pulling back, she kisses both of Dani’s cheeks before letting go of her entirely. It isn’t enough, but Karin has put her fingers in her mouth, sounding out a high pitched whistle that brings more family members over to them. Not all of them, nowhere near, but they must have been waiting for the signal. They envelope Dani in embraces, tears on all of their faces, a mix of English and Swedish and silent farewells filling her ears as she hastily tries to return them. Greg has been pushed away to the edges, back to the car and he watches with his mouth agape for a moment before shoving the backpack into the trunk.</p><p>Siv is one of the last people to bid her farewell, tucking a small stone into Dani’s hand and folding it over. “For later,” she says, gesturing for Dani to stow it away which Dani does immediately shoving it into her pocket.</p><p>The very last person is Pelle, looking devastated while he stares at her, like he is trying to memorise her face before his long legs carry him over. Like a movie star gesture, he sweeps her up into a kiss, embracing her with a passion that should carrying them on.</p><p>“Hopefully it will only be for a few days,” Dani assures him, willing it so when they finally part. “I’ll be back before you can really miss me too much.”</p><p>“Every hour will feel an eternity, my Dani,” he replies with a small shake of his head, smiling sadly down at her. He presses a kiss to the top of her head before Greg appears at Dani’s side, pulling her towards the car.</p><p>“Time to go. We have a long drive ahead of us. Nice to meet you, kid,” he tosses off to Pelle before steering Dani away. She trips over familiar gravel, head swivelled towards Pelle and the gathered crowd as she gets into the car.</p><p>Pelle was wrong — every minute feels like an eternity, not every hour.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>vii.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Each tick of the clocks overwhelms. It hammers into her skull, a dissonant pulse, at odds with the one in her veins. Every second feels painful.</p><p>The clock on the wall gives the time in Washington, DC. The one next to it says what time it is in Stockholm. She had seen the one for DC first and had momentarily been unmoored from time once more until she righted herself.</p><p>The chairs in the consulate are terrible, both too rigid and too soft all in one fell swoop.Through the door she can hear them talking about her, snatches of animated conversation floating through the wood and glass. They are at a loss, both US and Swedish authorities. There is no protocol for this situation, no standard set of procedures. People go missing all the time, that is an unfortunate fact. Relationships end all the time, equally unfortunate and equally true. This time it is the uncertain situation where <em>both</em> of those things are true at once. Why else would one of the missing hikers have left his girlfriend behind? What other reason than the simplest one: she is no longer his girlfriend and he is no longer her boyfriend.</p><p>Dani strains to hear the rest of it, the results of what they are going to do with her. She wants them to let her go, allow her to go back to Hårga, back to her family, to wile away the rest of her summer (both of them).</p><p>When she had told Pelle that they should go back to New York, she hadn’t meant like this. She meant that they should go back <em>together</em>, a smaller unit from their larger whole. Build a small enclave in that too big, too empty city until they could transfer elsewhere. Put their affairs in order — mostly hers — and then caring on drifting, buoyed on the safety of belonging some place, on everything else in their pilgrimages being temporary.</p><p>Her stomach twists, nausea roiling within her. Doubling over, the knuckles gripping the arms of that terrible chair go white. She bites her lower lip, takes a deep <em>breathe. In and out, in and out.</em> She can’t remember when she last ate something. It must have been breakfast this morning.</p><p>Desperately, she looks at the clocks. Quarter past four. How is this the same day? How has so much and yet so little time passed?</p><p>The desperate need for water rushes up, claws at her suddenly dry and desperate throat. The nausea is still there, but this time it overpowers her. Scrabbling inelegantly out of the chair, she dives for the waste paper basket sitting next to the door, emptying the contents her stomach in three heaves. Her shoulders shake, tears in her eyes as she finally manages to stop throwing up.Shakily she moves to wipe away the tears, but stops herself. Who is she trying to hide from? The embassy staff? Mark’s yelling mother? The Drs Hughes? Let them see her. Her tears aren’t for them anyways.</p><p>There is a soft knock at the door, absurd really as it isn’t her office. What right would she have to tell someone they couldn’t come in?</p><p>Brushing her mouth with the back of her hand, she croaks out an acknowledgement. “Come in.”</p><p>A woman with coppery hair sticks her head in the door, letting out a squeak of surprise to see Dani crouched beside the door, hand still on basket. The first thing that Dani notices about her is that her suit doesn’t quite fit, the jacket hanging loose off her shoulders like it doesn’t belong to her. She steps inside, tucking the folder she was carrying under her arm before she extends her hand to help Dani to her feet. “Hi Dani, I’m Kristi, do you need any water or anything? Coffee? Tea?”</p><p>The thought of coffee makes her stomach curl again and she starts to shake her head no even as she takes the offered hand and struggles to her feet. She feels like a baby animal learning to walk, all of her energy having evaporated. The bitter taste in her mouth stops her from refusing everything outright. “Water, maybe?”</p><p>“Water it is then,” Kristi smiles at her, gesturing for Dani to return to her seat as she pops out of the room, returning with a bottle of cool water just as Dani finds the chair again.</p><p>“Here you go,” she says hands it to Dani before setting the folder down on the desk and taking a seat.</p><p>Cracking the seal on the water bottle, Dani guzzles down half of it in a few hasty swallows. She feels parched, like there might not be enough water in the coming days. She’s breathless when she finishes, screwing the cap back on before jumping right in to what she has to say. “I haven’t done anything wrong. Last I checked breaking up with someone isn’t a crime.”</p><p>“And it still isn’t or else I’d be in a lot of trouble,” Kristi assures her with a laugh, opening the folder. “We are merely concerned with how this looks. The United States State Department always wants to do everything to ensure that American citizens overseas are safe and able to return home. Even here in our allied partners, such as Sweden.”</p><p>“Okay,” Dani folds her cardigan closer around her chest, wrapping herself tighter in it. “So why was it so important that I come here?”</p><p>Kristi purses her thin lips thoughtfully. “Let’s just say that there are a lot of questions right now and the families of your missing friends are putting a lot of pressure on everyone for answers. The Swedish government in the past has not taken so <em>kindly</em> to our kind of pressure. We simply want to ensure that nothing happens to you because of it.”</p><p>Slumping back against the chair, Dani’s shoulders droop. “Oh.”</p><p>This is looking less and less like the easy fix that she’d been hoping for. The more people involved, the more agendas, the harder it will be to find a simple solution, to let her go back to Hårga, to make a plan for returning for the next solstice or sooner.</p><p>“In the meantime, we are going to be putting you up in a hotel and have one of our team be there to support you, does that sound good?” Kristi flips through the pages before pulling out a sheet of paper, grabbing her business card and stapling it to the bottom before holding it for Dani to take. “And this is my card, just in case your point person is unavailable and you need something. Don’t worry. We are here for <em>you</em>.’</p><p>Numbly taking the paper, she nods, knowing that Kristi is lying whether she intends to or not. No one in this building is here for her. Not really.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p><em>viii</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“We have to go after her. There has to be something we can do.” Pelle is pacing the floor of the winter book binding house, agitated and pleading. Like a threatened creature, he needs a place to put his anger, his frustration. Directing it at members of his family would do no one any good, but he cannot be still. Stillness only leads to trouble, leads his thoughts down a path that he doesn’t wish to tread.</p><p>Ingemar would know what to do. No, that is not strictly true. Ingemar would be just as lost as he is, but his brother would be in lock step with him, ready to do something drastic and bold, to push forward to get Dani back. Or at least he would be someone that Pelle could wrestle with, who would take and deal distracting punches, just like they did when they were kids. But that will never happen again.</p><p>It’s barely been hours, but Pelle knows that he will not be able to stomach the evening meal. The cavernous pit there wants for something that it cannot have. He also knows that he will not be able to sleep in his bed in the Summer house, so close to Dani’s, nestled between two empty spaces.</p><p>“Calm, my son, be steady. You know that her heart is Hårgan, that she is not lost to us,” Father Odd assures him, setting down his awl and getting up from the workbench to place a comforting hand on Pelle’s shoulder. Instantly Pelle stops his pacing, locking eyes with the older man, working his breath to be in time with him. “She is not lost,” Father Odd repeats slowly, firmly, grounding them down.</p><p>Pelle nods, hands working into fists at his side, clenching and unclenching reflexively, trying to burn off his energy, to work out the emotions without seeking destruction.</p><p>Father Odd taps a hand over Pelle’s heart, bringing his focus back there, to the beating organ that knows and trusts, that keeps him going. “Already your sister is working with the others to see what will be and can be done. You must trust.”</p><p>He wants to argue that he <em>does </em>trust Dani, that his distrust lies with outside forces That the world is not kind, it does not take what is best into consideration. But a simple shake of Father Odd’s snowy head banishes that argument.</p><p>“Yes, father,” Pelle settles for instead, sounding like a child once more.</p><p>“Good. Now go chop some wood or something. Put those feelings out into the universe once more,” Father Odd releases him shooing him away. It isn’t a task with any urgency, the usefulness of it more of a long term goal than an immediate one, but Pelle is ever eager for the distraction.</p><p>“I will see you at supper,” Pelle steps towards the door, pausing in the threshold, the cooling evening air pressing against his back like a heavy hand.“Thank you.”</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p><em>ix</em>.</p><p> </p><p>The hotel room is small and square, all sterile whites and supposedly soothing beiges. A singular green accent painting hangs above the bed, further emphasising that the room is little more than an IKEA catalog come to life.</p><p>She must pick the phone up a dozen times, replacing it again when she remembers that she doesn’t know the phone number. Even Pelle’s escapes her and she doesn’t know If it would work anyways, if it was just a number he had for New York that was disconnected right after they returned to the permanent village, back to the land of WiFi and loose tethers to the outside world.</p><p>Lying in on top of the duvet Dani cries. Curled into the fetal position, arms holding onto herself because there are no other arms to comfort her, no one else to provide safety and warmth.</p><p>Her backpack, full of the vestiges of her previous half-life, rests on the desk. It had taken huge amounts of strength to make herself open it, scraping for something, anything to take the tension away, to help her sleep, to make her forget this day. Right on top, balled up as if it had hastily been shoved in by whichever member of her family had been tasked with retrieving it, is a blue t-shirt. A strange animal like groan had escaped her as she pulled it out, a sachet of herbs, already losing their scent, tumbling onto the carpeted floor.</p><p>A blue the colour of the sky in the height of summer. When she had seen it on him, she had thought that it almost matched his eyes, but that his eyes were better, that the depths of them made the colour richer. At the time that thought had felt like a betrayal, both welcome and unwanted, something that made her burn for all the wrong reasons.</p><p>Pelle’s shirt. Clutching it to her chest, she had inhaled, picking out the scents that were uniquely his, mixed in with the now-familiar scent of the handmade soap used for laundry back home in Hårga.Now as she lays on the bed, she holds the shirt for want of him, imagining his smile and the the way that he squints and looks up at the sky when thinking, like the answers will float down from above. Even as she catalogs pieces of Pelle, she recalls Father Odd’s dad jokes, Jarl’s teasing, Dagny’s laughing prodding. Majvor’s unabashed malapropisms, Mother Ulrika’s hugs. Grandmother Siv’s steady strength.</p><p>Then it circles back to Pelle. A hundred pieces, gathered so quickly over the span of just a handful of weeks, but already taken for granted that there would be more. That there would be time.</p><p>The ache in her chest grows.</p><p>Lifting her head to look at the digital clock on the nightstand as the time switches over, zeroing out once more. The woman from the US Embassy, Gretchen, the one who brought Dani to the hotel will be there in a little more than seven hours. Gretchen hadn’t said it, neither had the man in the ill-fitting plaid button down who shared her office, but Dani can read between the lines. Has done years of study and months of fieldwork, weeks with the Hårga to be able to read what isn’t said. They aren’t going to let her leave, not yet, not alone. They’re afraid that she’ll run off. That she won’t be bound, won’t give in to protocol or expectations. Won’t say anymore than what she already told them. That watching her is in the best interests of the US government, at least for a little while.</p><p>They would be right.</p><p>Squeezing her eyes shut, Dani rolls over to face the window. North-facing. Staring out the window, she lets her eyes drift close as she fills the picture window with the view that she’d rather see.</p><p>It’s tomorrow. A whole new day.</p><p>How terrible.</p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p><em>x</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“This man is her partner.”</p><p>Dangy’s voice is a steadying force, clear and true. Pelle has always seen his sister as the balance for himself and Ingemar, and in the absence of their brother, they have leaned more and more into their own reassurance. Where Pelle has had intuition, unclouded though it may be to guide him, Dagny has had pragmatism, her feet rooted firmly in the soil of Hårga, spreading forth branches through her words. She’s a protector, born true, and thus her choice to attend law school and take up the post of the family’s lawyer for aging Elder Emerick had been an obvious one.</p><p>Now more than ever he is glad that she was set upon this course. He is doing his part to remain silent, sitting there in a well-fitting dark blue trousers and a tie, more put together than he has had to be in months. He is a naturalist, the need to dress up will always look a bit like a costume on him.Meanwhile, Dagny looks capable and perfectly natural in her equally well tailored suit, her posture immaculate, her hands steady.</p><p>Pelle knows that she wants their sister back, wants Dani returned to Hårga just as much as he does, but Dagny has more practice at being the sort of convincing this situation requires even if none of them have ever been in exactly <em>this</em> sort of situation.</p><p>“Do you have the paperwork?” The man at the desk flips through the folder in front of him, searching for what he has just asked about. “If what you say is true, then we should have a copy on the record.”</p><p>Pelle’s heart sinks. No such documentation exists. It isn’t standard Hårgan practice, no need to formally set down a marriage bond. Pairings last as long as both parties are willing, renewed annually. No one goes to the tax office and gets it recorded.There is nothing to prove.</p><p>Now he wishes that he and Dani had done exactly that. That they had played the rules of this dark, fucked up world and gone to a registry office and printed out their names and signed a ledger. Played at being people who needed to conform to a world that only takes and never gives or asks why.</p><p>Maybe if they had, then these people could help them. A flush of anger, dark and unsettling rises within him. A desire for balance, to mete out destruction. Balling his hands into fists, he presses them into his thighs, forcing calm upon himself, willing himself back into the moment. Dagny is calmly explaining that no such record exists yet, but it is a simply a matter of the American government being difficult. None of that has any bearing, she assures her words like velvet around a stone, firm and soft all at once.</p><p>“Of course, of course,” the official nods his head understandingly, clicking his tongue against his teeth in sympathetic irritation. “But without the paperwork, there is less that can be done. You know that well enough, counsellor. The law is firm on these matters. The Americans say that she is one of theirs and until we have firm evidence to the contrary, then it is extremely difficult to get them to listen, no matter how reasonable.”</p><p><em>Especially how reasonable</em>, Pelle hears under the man’s words, his tone one of disparaging annoyance at this other government.</p><p>“I understand,” Dagny nods, turning her head to briefly cast Pelle a steadying look, one that he accepts with desperate eagerness. She returns her attention to the official fully. “We will continue to pursue that paperwork to get the necessary naturalisation process started. In the meantime, I wish to formal request a hearing for an expedited residency claim to be made.”</p><p>The man raises his eyebrows above the dark frames of his glasses, skeptical of such a bold request. Pelle leans forward, wanting to insist that it isn’t too much, it is too little, all of this can be avoided if someone just acted.</p><p>In the end he says nothing. Dagny holds firm, silently challenging the man to fight back against her request. The official only lasts a few minutes before bending and folding to her will.</p><p>“Very well,” he pulls out a form and slides it across the desk to her. “Fill this out and we will see what can be done. Even expedited, an emergency hearing could take weeks to get on the docket, so please continue to pursue other means.”</p><p>Dagny smiles brightly as she takes the form, tucking it into her briefcase before rising to her feet, extending her hand to the man’s. The official stands to meet her, shaking her hand cordially. “Of course. It was a pleasure speaking to you. Thank you for your time until next we meet.”</p><p>Stiffly Pelle gets to his feet, his movements slightly disjointed and out of sync. He shakes the man’s hand as well, thanks him for his time, barely catching the rote note of encouragement from the man. This has fixed nothing. What he and Dani have means nothing to these people without a stupid piece of paper saying it does. How unbelievably callous they all are.</p><p>Taking him by the elbow, Dagny guides him from the room, giving him a little squeeze. Ever the fulcrum in the pendulum of his and Ingemar’s brotherhood, Pelle knows that his sister is steady and true, that if anyone can bend an unfeeling system to her will to protect the family, it is Dagny. That doesn’t stop him from wishing for some force greater than them all to take control, to sweep all of these obstacles away.</p><p>He stares at the clock on the wall while Dagny fills out the form and schedules a hearing, missing her arguments in favour of one day over another. The minute hand stalls, clicking without moving, struggling against an invisible force. He finds himself holding his breath as he watches, only exhaling when it finally manages to move once more, already behind where it should be.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p><em>xi</em>.</p><p>In the end, they only leave her in the purgatory of that square for a day and a half, ferrying her from the hotel to the embassy and back again. The only reprieve is when she is taken to the police headquarters, reassured that she is not under arrest or investigation. The low level annoyance in the detectives’ voices speaks that they are spending more energy on this than they’d like, but can do nothing to stop it.</p><p>That morning Dani had stood before the fogged up bathroom mirror for a moment, staring at the illusory blank slate. Carefully she had traced out the lines that she was only just beginning to learn, letting her heart do the heavy work, guided by something she cannot name.</p><p>It isn’t until she’s done, hand falling back down to the counter, that Dani really sees the pattern in front of her.<em>Fehu, Elhaz, Raidho, Mannaz </em>all whisper back at her. A talisman, or perhaps a prayer, the full meaning evading her.</p><p>Layered over her reflection as she steels herself against the day ahead. Already it’s fading, evaporating in the steamy air.</p><p>A heavy knock intrudes on her thoughts.</p><p>“How’s it going in there? Are you almost ready?” A voice asks through the thick door of her hotel room. It belongs to the foreign service officer from the US embassy that’s been tasked with baby-sitting her, from what Dani can surmise. The woman has thick brown hair and a tight smile, a businesslike manner even matter even when she’s trying to be reassuring.</p><p>“Almost,” Dani lies, turning away from her reflection, from the heavy bags under her eyes, how her skin looks wan in the lighting. There isn’t much time for heavy thoughts after that, not as she rushes through getting ready to go, dressing in clothes that feel a bit like a costume.</p><p>“Grab your bag,” the woman tells her, nodding towards the backpack when Dani opens the door. “We’re going to the airport.”</p><p>Robotically she nods agains, drifting onto autopilot while simultaneously playing out scenarios where she could escape the car, find her way to a train station, get her way back. But she doesn’t even know which station to travel to, how close she could get. She’s not an action movie star, and while that normally has never bothered her, today it does.</p><p>She sees him as the consular car rounds the corner, weaving through the foot traffic. It is caught at an intersection.</p><p>“Pelle?” She says, voice cracking in surprise, heart lifting. Her hand flies to the door handle, trying to get it open and failing. Child locks. Banging her hand flat against the window, Dani tries a different tactic. “Pelle!”</p><p>“Let me out of this car,” she tells the driver, who is stricken by her urgency.The consulate rep in the front seat turns and twists her body, hands placating on the centre console.</p><p>“You need to calm down. We can’t let you out until we get to the airport.”</p><p>Dani bangs on the window again, screaming his name. This time it is enough to attract attention from those further back in the throng of pedestrians. She sees him catch sight of her, mouth her name like a prayer, the grip of urgency that grabs ahold of him. Tears are in her eyes as she smiles at him, wordlessly pleading as she tries to open the door once more. Pelle pushes his way through the crowd, trying to get to her while the car is still stopped.</p><p>The light changes. The car starts to roll, moving steadily away from him. He isn’t fast enough. She needs him to be faster. Her heart is calling to his just as her voice is, and she can hear his echoing back.</p><p><em>Catch me, find me, please, please, please.</em> </p><p>It’s foolish, but she tries the door again. Third time is <em>not </em>the charm.</p><p>“You need to settle down,” Gretchen tells her, serious and firm, impatience clear as day. “You’re not getting out of the damned car.”</p><p>Dani ignores her, twisting to look out the back window, eager to keep her eyes on his, to not lose what could be her last glimpse of him.</p><p>The car turns the corner, the crowd shifts around him even as he moves towards her. It isn’t enough. Not this time. Speed is gathered and he disappears from sight.</p><p>Heartbreak sears through her, bringing nausea in its wake. Turning back around, she vomits all over the floor mat, an obvious <em>fuck you</em> to her fellow Americans in the form of breakfast pastries and fruit.</p><p>They deserve it.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p><em>xii</em>.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t make it and it crushes him. Pelle makes it around the corner only to see the taillights of the car disappear around another. Despite the car looking like so many others he would know which one had Dani even if he hadn’t seen her face in the window, seen her mouth shape his name.</p><p>Jarl catches up to him a minute later, breathless form having come the other direction. Pelle has slumped against the brick wall of a nearby shop, having staggered there like a knife had been wedged between his ribs.</p><p>“We will get her back,” Dagny presses her forehead to his, her own tears streaming down her own normally sunny features. “We will find a way. She came to us once. The All-Father and All-Mother won’t let her be cast out again.”</p><p>“Besides, they haven’t actually charged her with anything. She has done nothing wrong. The American government is just,” Dagny pauses, searching for a word that fits without being overly rude toward their absent sister’s birthplace, the land that she’s now being returned to. Jarl has no such qualms, wordless filling in the blank with a lewd hand gesture. It’s the sort of dry humor that helps to crack at some of the tension, at the heavy pit of despair that is Pelle is certain is about to open up under him.</p><p>He gives his brother a thin, humourless smile as Jarl places a hand on his shoulder, wrapping his other around Dagny until they form a circle of Hårga in the middle of Stockholm, holding each other as a cool wind picks at their clothes, ignoring the annoyed glances of pedestrians who move around them. They probably think this is some sort of throuple reconciling, a weird interaction among young people. Pelle cares even less than he typically does about the appearance. Every assumption is wrong regardless.</p><p>“Come, brother, let’s go home,” Jarl says eventually, nodding his blond head as they pull apart.</p><p>Pelle follows him, not wanting to acknowledge that is true home is in a car on her way to a place that he can’t follow just yet.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>xiii.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Dani sits in the hard chair, staring out the window at the tarmac. A bookend to where she was over a month ago. She is still a mess, still a jumble of emotions and grief. Rather than hide them, paper over her feelings with her rescue drug and an over-bright smile, she lets them pour out of her. A concerned man offers her a packet of tissues which she thanks him for before watching him scurry away, like her grief is contagious. Get too close and you too will lose someone you love for reasons beyond your control.</p><p>The US embassy has sent another middleman along with her, under the pretence the he was due to return to New York on annual leave anyways therefore this is just fortunate timing. She hardly believes it, can identify a babysitter when she sees one. Fortunately he spares any attempt at small talk, doesn’t try to be her friend, merely uses his position so that they can board early. He is sitting on the aisle with noise cancelling headphones and a massive neck pillow, dry swallowing a Dramamine with an ease that makes Dani’s mouth go dry.Every time she has to get up to use the restroom or stretch her legs she has to forcefully nudge him to get his attention, making him grunt and making her feel like even more of a burden. She wants to curl in upon herself, to make herself feel small against the annoyance of her informal jailer, but a bout of mid-flight motion sickness urges her from her seat again and again.</p><p>If Dani sleeps at all on the flight, it barely registers. Her entire body is exhausted, weighted down and sticky.</p><p>Passing through expedited customs and immigration, she nods where she knows she should, shakes her head in other correct places. Anything that she has to declare does not belong on a form. The US government doesn’t want to hear any more about how she left her heart in Sweden, that only a ghost whose face matches the girl in the tiny passport returns.</p><p>Shock hits her, stops her in her tracks when she sees who is waiting on the other side, awkwardly clustered together. Her aunt and uncle along with Amy, stand gathered, looking towards her when the embassy official gets their attention.</p><p>“Oh Dani,” her aunt says, rushing forward to fold Dani into her arms. Dani is stunned into silence, shocked that they would be called and for what reason. But the exhaustion and the familiar embrace are enough to push it away, tears slipping out as she wraps her arms around her aunt, allowing herself to be fully heartbroken.</p><p>“It’s okay,” her aunt encourages, softly petting Dani’s head, shushing her gently. “Your family is here. We’ve got you.”</p><p>This just makes Dani cry harder, missing her family across the ocean, her heart buried in the land of forest and fire and stone. Without the words to properly explain this sort of grief, to put a voice to her shattered nature, she gives up, sobbing in the middle of Newark’s international arrivals terminal, letting it all come pouring out. </p><p>“I want to go home,” she chokes out eventually as Amy comes to place a comforting arm around Dani.“I just want to go home.”</p><p>“Okay,” Amy nods encouragingly, leaning her body against Dani’s. “Let’s go.”</p><p>There is a rental car waiting in a short term parking lot, a white four door sedan. One look at it and Dani’s tears return. This isn’t how she gets home, this world isn’t her home at all and there is no way to make them understand.</p><p>Crossing the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan, Dani feels lost in an ocean, overwhelmed by the lights and noise. It no longer feels exciting, no longer feels like a future she wants.</p><p>But it is what she has. And for now, she can only go forward until she can go back.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And like that they are separated, but fear not, it is not forever! This will end in a happy ending, but we have to work a bit harder to get there. </p><p>This took much longer to get out that I intended and for that everyone has my sincerest apologies. Real life got completely away from me (imagine that, moving during a pandemic and expecting smoothness! ha ha!) and thus my writing slowed down to a snail's pace. Plus the hardship of writing a chapter that was Heartbreak City took a bit of a toll on me, so I kept stopping to pace and rend my garments and the like. </p><p>I am by no means an expert in these sorts of legal situations. I do know people who are (not murder cults/missing persons, but international law) and there are only so many questions you can ask them via text before they start getting concerned. I walked right up to that line and danced upon it, but I'll send them cookies or something.</p><p>I think that this fic is going to end up being 6 chapters, just from looking at where I need to/still want to go from here, but I am not committing to that until I am bit further in chapter 5 than I am right now. The story just wants more! It desires words!</p><p>Thank you to everyone who is reading/has read and commented. I love it all and am so glad that you are here.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. hang your heart in lights above me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>i.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>A world of downy white engulfs her, a snowbank in the dying gasps of a New York summer. The air conditioning works too hard, rattling softly as it plummets the temperature of the room lower than is strictly comfortably. Everything has blurred away in a softness and white noise, simultaneously comforting and smothering, a cloud that won’t actually carry her away. Dani blinks slowly back to wakefulness, confused as to where she is and where the colour went, stiffening as she realises how along she is, drowning in a king sized bed. A vice clamps tightly around her heart, holding tight and knocking her breath away. In her dreams she is held, bathed in a warm, soft light, a glow that never goes out.</p><p>Her aunt and uncle did not bring her back to her apartment, instead diverting her to a hotel room adjoining theirs.</p><p>“Just for tonight, sweetheart, then we can go air out your apartment together. Get you settled back in,” her aunt had softly stroked her hair, hugging Dani again as they stood in the threshold. The beep of the keycard in the lock had been too loud, making Dani flinch away from it as her uncle had opened the door. </p><p><em>Her apartment</em>, Dani weighs the words in her mind, turning them over. It is odd to think of a place belonging to her. It doesn’t though. It belongs to some faceless landlord, managed by a property manager who always responds to Dani’s requests in a timely manner. She is merely borrowing it for a while. <em>What is theirs and not theirs</em>, Pelle’s words echo through her mind. That is exactly what everyone does here. Everything she owns can be so easily taken away. Everything she truly wants already has.</p><p>How she had managed to fall asleep, Dani will never fully understand. She had slipped so easily into that other world, that better world, one in which she hadn’t been removed from those who loved her, who didn’t judge or mock her feelings, who didn’t think less of her for consigning her ex to the literal flames. Who didn’t ask the same question over and over, like they were laying a spell that would magically produce a new answer that satisfies.</p><p>Light can be seen creeping in through the curtains, but that doesn’t give any indication as to what time it is. This is New York City after all, Manhattan to boot. Even at midnight there would still be enough lights to brighten the edges of the window.</p><p>Jet-lagged and heartbroken, Dani rolls onto her side, scanning the surfaces of the bedside table for the clock.</p><p>Bright red numbers stare back at her, telling her that it is 7:14. Whether that is morning or evening, she has no idea, has no idea how long she slept.</p><p>There is a soft knock on the door between her room and her aunt and uncle’s. Sheets rustle faintly as Dani pushes herself up to a sitting position, scrubbing away dried drool and partial fallen tears as she looks at the door.</p><p>“Come in,” she answers, her voice cracking as she speaks. She licks her lips before continuing, feeling the dry, papery skin. “I’m awake.”</p><p>The door cracks open, just enough that she can see the edge of the outline of her aunt through it. “Are you decent?”</p><p>It’s such a maternal question that it nearly makes Dani burst into tears, the urge already so high up in her that she feels like her own tears might drown her. At the same time, it is a question that baffles her, already so used to the comfortable way in which the Hårgans inhabited their bodies, accepted each others’ forms in whatever state. Back there she has still had layers of puritan body values that were slowly being sloughed off, making her feel out of step against such freedom. The out-of-step feeling remains here, albeit in the opposite direction.</p><p>Dani looks down at herself, still dressed in the soft cotton shirt she was wearing yesterday or hours ago, whichever it is. Her pants are laying in a pile near the bathroom door, hastily shed before she crawled into the expansive white bed. The effort behind digging out her pyjamas, unworn since Midsommar, had seemed overwhelming. This is the furtherest she had gotten in disrobing, and it feels vaguely too much.</p><p>Adjusting the shoulders of her shirt, she pulls it back on properly before swinging her legs off the side of the bed, making to stand. Her legs briefly buckle, days of running on autopilot making conscious effort feel exhausting. “Um, give me a second,” she croaks apologetically as she reaches out to steady herself on the bedside table.</p><p>Barely any effort and her heart is already racing. It can’t seem to get itself out of panic mode.</p><p>“Don’t worry, sweetie,” her aunt assures her, the vowels elongated in a way that instantly makes Dani think of Minnesota, of her childhood, of lemon bars and long winters. Dani unsteadily moves over to her pants, slipping them back on and moving towards the door as her aunt continues. “Your uncle and I just wanted to see if you wanted to come down with us to get some breakfast. You must be absolutely famished.”</p><p>Hastily finger combing her hair, Dani swings the door the rest of the way open, working a tired smile onto her face, trying to look more together than she is. Hazel eyes meet her own peering out from her aunt’s concerned face, lines of worry raging her. Seeing them is a soft thump to the solar plexus that shocks the air from her lungs, a vivid reminder that her aunt is her father’s sister, that she has suffered a loss too. A fellow orphan, albeit in much less dramatic circumstances, this worn woman no longer has her own sibling as well.</p><p>Instinctively Dani steps forward and wraps her arms around her aunt, sniffing back tears. There is a brief hesitation before the older woman returns the hug.</p><p>“Thank you,” Dani says, not having it win her to resent her aunt and uncle for coming all the way to New York for her. It isn’t their fault that they were called. They are merely supporting players in a much larger game. This trip must be costing them a fortune, even more due to the impromptu nature of it. If there was any doubt or hesitation about whether or not they should, both have been good about concealing it, easily coming to Dani’s aid, easy to put action behind their love.</p><p>“Oh sweetheart,” her aunt pets her head and Dani hears a soft noise that indicates the other woman is crying too. “We love you. We can’t even imagine what you must be going through, especially after the last year. Losing the man you love. Gosh, if I lost my Robert…” her aunt trails off and Dani feels her shake her head against her own cheek.</p><p>Dani knows that her aunt is likely referring to Christian, either not knowing or understanding what is going on with Pelle. But Pelle is the man she loves, the man she’s lost against her own will. <em>But not forever</em>, she reminds herself. This is not a permanent ill-timed gift to the everything.</p><p>She knows exactly what is behind this gap, can place faces and give names. No one understands how easy it was, how her heart was bleeding before and is bleeding once again. Her roots, still so tender and new, have been cleaved away from their fertile soil where they were finally starting to grow.</p><p>“I love you too,” Dani manages just as her stomach gives a great rolling grumble. The noise surprises her and makes her aunt laugh tenderly.</p><p>Pulling out of the hug, the older woman scans Dani’s face, then surveys the rest of her, as if looking for external proof of harm. “Goodness, sounds like I was right. When was the last time you ate anything?”</p><p>“Um…yesterday morning? I think?” Dani doesn’t mention how she threw up in the car, splattering the seats and the floor mats, rinsing her mouth out with water in an airport bathroom. How she threw up twice more on the plane, eating on a little bit of cellophane wrapped cookies on the entire journey. That, at least, is a much as she remembers. It might have been more or less.</p><p>Her aunt tuts softly. “We should fix that,” she says with a shake of her head. “Do you need to shower first? We’re just going downstairs for now. Or will as soon as your uncle gets back.”</p><p>As if on queue, there is a soft series of beeps and a click as the door to their room swings open, the tall, lumberjack-like form of her uncle filling in the doorway as he steps inside. He’s carrying the ice bucket, shaking his head.</p><p>“Jesus Christ, it is swampier than the devil’s ball sack out there,” he exclaims before shaking the ice bucket. “But at least now we have some good ice.”</p><p>“Robert!” Her aunt scolds affectionately. “Language!”</p><p>“Shit, Debs, Dani here has probably heard worse. She has lived here for years now,” her uncle rebuffs with a goofy smile on his face, setting down the ice bucket on the dresser before pressing a kiss to her aunt’s temple. “Haven’t you, Dani? Heard worse?”</p><p>“I have, easily” Dani concurs awkwardly, feeling her stumble rumble once more. She steps back from them, retreating into her own room to scrabble for shoes to slip on. Once she has, she palms her hotel room key from where it was placed on the dresser and returns to the doorway. “I could shower after. I’m ready whenever you are.”</p><p>When they are downstairs, seated around a table in the hotel’s dining space, Dani finds herself watching her aunt and uncle as she picks at her fruit. She only manages a few bites, a piece of dried toast, simultaneously ravenous and completely repulsed by food. Rationally she knows that she needs to eat, needs to keep going, keep her energy up. There’s talk of heading over to Dani’s apartment later, a discussion of where the closest grocery store is to there, whether they should drive their rental or take the subway. Every interaction between her aunt and uncle is layered, an entire conversation passing between them with gestures and motions, half the words being spoken out loud for Dani’s benefit. Watching them, she can feel her heart squeeze and swell in her chest at the sight of their easy affection, their wordless communication. How she misses that, the unspoken ways of speaking, of trusting wholly, so recently lost to her.She can picture Pelle’s face in her head, see his expression, imagine how they’d be having their own silent sidebar if he was here. Her aunt and uncle would like him, Dani muses, probably more than they ever liked Christian, the only one of Dani’s boyfriends they’d ever met. Not that there had been many and now there will only be the one.</p><p><em>Pelle</em>, she thinks as she pops a strawberry into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully, sending her thoughts across the ocean to him, willing her love along the waves. <em>I’ll find a way back.</em></p><p>In four hours time she will be culling the contents of her fridge with her aunt, surreptitiously checking her phone for missed messages from Hårga, ones she already knows won’t be there. In nine hours, she’ll have a drawn out conversation with her aunt about whether or not she should stay another night in the hotel with them, whether she should really be so alone in her grief. In ten hours she’ll have won, her aunt giving in to Dani’s need to settle, Dani making promises to answer every call, to meet them the next morning outside her building’s front door, bright and early.</p><p>That night she will sit on her fire escape, squinting at the moon through the flood of city lights, wondering if Pelle’s doing the same thing, if it can even still be seen in the light of a Hårga summer morning.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>ii.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Pelle hasn’t sleep in days. Not properly, not truly. Every once of sleep has been gathered in gasps, a brink blink of it when he’s in the middle of weeding, the sun high over head. Or at the dinner table, mid conversation with Valentin. Most of it is ill-timed, poor for really thinking. He feels the world fraying at the edges, his vision blurred at all times, colour draining away and he hasn’t turned to any of their family’s homeopathics.</p><p>It has been a week since he last saw her, since he last held her in his arms. Since he gave her a kiss good-bye that was meant to carry them both forward through this separation until the next time they meet.</p><p>He wonders if she’s trying to dream of him. If she seeks him out in slumber and solitude, wondering where he is and why he hasn’t appeared to her. His fits of sleep haven’t been long enough to dream, let alone to find her. The <em>Sowilo </em>rune burns bright under his pillow, calling for her, begging for his dreams to bring them back together.</p><p>Pelle abandons his usual bed. With neither Ingemar nor Dani on either side, acting as grounding forces, sleeping there feels like an abyss. He no longer wants to have what he used to share, can’t stomach having it alone.</p><p>Grandmother Irma offers him the room on the couples floor in the Summer House that had been set aside for them. </p><p>“No,” he shakes his head firmly, recoiling from the thought. “No. I can’t.”</p><p>It is meant to be theirs, they should cross that threshold and claim it as one. He doesn’t want to occupy a space that doesn’t have her in it. While the existence of the room is hopeful, it feels like he’d become a prisoner of want and memory if he lived there. No, he has to focus on getting back to her, on getting through this nightmare mess.</p><p>His fathers and mothers sense the urgency in him, know him well enough to know that anything requiring finesse or detailed work is beyond him now. For years Pelle has worked on self-control, on meticulous planning and attention to detail, holding his overflowing emotions in tight grip until he can constructively let them run free. The fire burned away so much that was unholy, ill-kept and wrong, but in the smouldering wreckage, something dark has started to grow. A rot beneath the ash. What normally could be swept away, carefully picked apart and washed with water, understood in rawest form has been kicked over. The scab has been picked away before it was ready, leaving the still healing wound. The Americans have dug their claws into that wound and made it bigger, snatching away Dani and taking healing with her.</p><p>So he is set to tasks that do not require skill so much as brute force and open spaces. Father Odd had deftly removed the clippers from Pelle’s hands when the late season pruning had become too aggressive, new growth shorn away instead of the old in his distraction. Mother Ebba had set him to chopping wood, breaking apart old logs and broken barrels, building up the pile for the everlasting flame. Over and over he had swung the axe, sweat sopping his shirt until he had removed it, heedless that the summer air is rapidly cooling. Sweat had run from his brow, mixing with the tears that started to fall until he had been forced to stop lest his blindness cause injury. He had sat hunched on the roughhewn bench by the pile, face in his hands, openly weeping until little My had come and brought him bread and water, bringing him word that Grandmother Siv wished to speak with him, that he was urged to come back inside.</p><p>“Your intuition is clouded,” Grandmother Siv remarks, looking down at the runes on the table that he had fumbled in his hands, grasping at them blindly, unable to properly feel the draw. All of his life he has been guided by his intuition, has relied on it and trained and now it has become a murky stream in his mind. Grief has washed clarity away. Now the runic pieces, carved out of bone</p><p>Anger takes its turn at the forefront of his grief and Pelle lets out a derisive snort, a sharp barking noise that merits a raised eyebrow from Grandmother Siv.</p><p>Instantly chastened, he ducks his head, running an a hand through his hair. “Sorry, Grandmother.”</p><p>Grandmother Siv places a comforting hand on his shoulder, merely nodding in acknowledgment of his apology without wiping it away. “We always knew that her path to Hårga would be a difficult one, even more so than it is for a newblood to join us. This is merely a bend in the road, not the end of it,” she assures him calmly, giving his shoulder a little pat before sweeping the miscast runes into a pile, wiping the slate away. “Dani is our ninety year queen and one of us. We will find a way to bring her home. You brought her to us once, there is no reason that we cannot find a way to do it again.”</p><p>It isn’t meant to be dismissive. He knows it isn’t. That the matriarch is being encouraging, is telling Pelle to take heart and have courage, to learn to trust himself and Dani and the everything once more. But the problem is not his lack of trust, his lack of faith in her and in them. No, it’s the way that such banality, such rigidity <em>close-mindedness </em>from the outside burst through the gates and took her away.</p><p>With every blink he can see her stricken expression from the window the car. See her perfect lips forming his name, hear her screaming it even if in reality the sound was captured by glass and distance.</p><p>The game being played by the universe, the everything around them, is one whose rules he cannot currently discern. The board has been rotated and the players changed out. So many months of tireless, careful groundwork were done in bringing his so-called friends back to his family. His guests that were made into offerings, that were folded back into the universe.</p><p>A heavy sigh escapes him, shoulders pulled down toward the floorboards. All of the fight is leaving him now, the unsettled ache taking over. There will be so rest, not properly, until he can see a way out, until he can see his way back to her. For years, even before he knew her name, knew the reality of her, he could feel the thread between them, sense her beating heart. Now the thread is fraying, the pull still so strong, but the distance much too far, too stormy for him to see a way through.</p><p>He takes a step back, reaching behind him to steady himself on the sideboard. Grandmother Siv cocks her head to the side, grey eyes observant, reading what he can no longer see in the mirror on his body, on his heart. Then she steps towards him, cradling his face with her hands. He can feel the soft wool of her ever-present fingerless gloves, feel the callouses on her fingertips. Lifting his gaze, he locks his eyes with hers, opens himself up to her.</p><p>“Go cut a branch from the first tree in the orchard that speaks to you,” she instructs. “One with fruit on it. From that you will make a new set of runes. Through this, perhaps you will find the clarity that you once had.”</p><p>She removes her hands from his cheeks after he nods, reaching out to pull a sharp knife from a nearby drawer. The bone handle is yellowed with age, worn smooth by the work of many hands. Without seeing inside the worn leather sheath, Pelle knows that the blade is well cared for, keeping its hair splitting sharpness. Carefully, she presses the knife into his left hand which closes reflexively around it,</p><p>It would be easy to say that this is a frivolous errand, a task set before him to give him something to do while the heavier work of opening the path for Dani’s return is done by others. And it is exactly that, Pelle realises, just as he realises that Grandmother Siv is trying to give him a gift. By repeating the rituals that he learned as a child, when he was still dreaming the early meanings of the runes themselves, he can return to an older part of himself. Sweep away the cobwebs that fear has allowed to cloud his mind.</p><p>“Good,” Siv announces, satisfied with his reaction. Pelle holds the knife reverently, feeling the weight of it with both hands before slipping it into his pocket. She turns her back to him, casting him a look over her shoulder. “Stop and get yourself a first pressing of the new cider. Sten tells me that this early crop is especially robust.”</p><p>The conversation is over for now. Pelle need not be told twice to get on his way, stopping at the brewhouse for a small mug of cider. It really is quite good.</p><p>That night he falls asleep amongst the trees, dew settling on his clothes. He dreams of a sun so bright, of Dani’s tear streaked face and bright smile, how she lights up when she sees him, running through a field that is not a field but is also a crowd.</p><p><em>“Oh,” </em>dream Dani whispers to him, presses her mouth against his as he wraps his arms around her. “<em>Pelle, oh Pelle.”</em></p><p>The scent of her fills his nose, overwhelms his senses as he returns the kiss, savouring the taste of her on his tongue after so many days apart. In the dream, the distance vanishes. He can feel the exhaustion radiating off of her, just as surely as he knows it falls off of him. But for now, in this brief place that is neither here nor there, they are whole once more.</p><p>It is the most sleep he’s had in days, even if it still isn’t enough.</p><p>Pelle wakes with the morning sun on his face, a bug creeping up his sleeve. He brushes it away, lifting his face towards the east, where the sun is starting to spill over the horizon. A tree, with its apples turned red and gold by the light obscures part of his vision of the sun, but he can feel his breath slip from him as it strikes him. Without further consideration he rises from the ground, shaking off the dew as he walks to the tree, testing branches for the one that will make the best gift.</p><p>When he is done with the runes, when the circles of wood are polished clean and the hollow cuts painted brightly, he will gift them to Dani.The tree is a sign from her, it carried her and the sun back to him.</p><p>It isn’t enough to satisfy, but as Pelle saws at the chosen branch, he thinks of her lips, hears her laugh, and finds himself smiling.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>iii.</em>
</p><p>“Now why do you think you felt compelled to stay?” Her therapist asks from the overstuffed burgundy chair, one leg folded up on under, her head tilted in question, body relaxed.</p><p><em>Active listening</em>, Dani notes absently,<em> a skill that can be both taught and built upon already existing skills</em>. She recalls how many in her cohort had struggled with it, even during her internships, so many had struggled to listen with intention, to absorb whatever is being said to them. The best they could do was to put on a good show and hope the speaker didn’t notice.</p><p>Dani usually did. Not too long ago she would make an excuse about the other person’s inability to properly listen, to hear what she was actually saying. She would blame herself for not being clearer, for speaking out of turn or saying too much. Various therapists and workbooks only just started to work her through it, though it had been so easy, so safe to fall back into familiar patterns of excuses. It felt like the only way to survive the world.</p><p>Shifting around on her own small sofa, Dani folds both of her legs up under her, wrapping her sweater around her bare knees. Quickly she had adjusted to the cooler temperatures of Hälsingland, of a summer that was <em>pleasant</em> rather than <em>muggy</em>.The shock of the temperatures outside, clashing against the over air-conditioned interiors have been hell on Dani’s already frazzled systems. If it weren’t for the congestion that has taken up residence in her face, she knows that she would be able to smell the decay being carried on the barely-there wind that sweeps down the street.</p><p>Instead she settles for layers when she would prefer none, completely lost as to how to dresswhen she leaves her apartment. So she doesn’t leave it during the day unless she absolutely has to, when friends requests to meet up and things such as therapy appointments cannot be deferred or avoided.</p><p>Her therapist clears her throat, signally for Dani to return her attention to the present, to become <em>rooted in space</em>. Dani is rooted, she wants to argue, just not in a space that can be confined to this city.</p><p>“I don’t think compelled is the right word,” Dani settles for saying instead, deflecting attention onto the language instead of what her therapist means. She ceases the fidgeting she was absently doing a moment before, when her thoughts were everywhere else. Being wholly present in her body is necessary right now, even if it isn’t where she wants to be. “I was invited to stay longer and so I did. No one forced me to stay. I <em>chose</em> to stay.”</p><p>She wants to make that clear. That it was <em>her choice, </em>that she had agency in the decision. That it was a fairy tale, with a man from a far away place, sweeping her into his far off kingdom. Where they acknowledged flaws, but didn’t shame you for them. Where the only torches being wielded and mallets swung were directed to people other than her.</p><p>“Chose to stay,” her therapist repeats, expression cool and impassive. There isn’t a hint of sarcasm or disbelief in her voice, unlike the voices of her friends and family when Dani had said the same thing. She doesn’t trust its absence.“In Hälsingland.”</p><p>Dani has been careful to leave Hårga out of the discussion, lest anyone outside the American State Department and various Swedish officials decide to google it. They would barely be successful, finding a rough website for the lumber mill and another for homeopathic remedies and essential oils. Little more than the contents of Etsy shop. Nothing substantial.</p><p>That doesn’t stop her from wanting to protect them, to keep that world and her life in it safe from those who would destroy it rather than try to understand.</p><p>For now she nods. “In Hälsingland. With Pelle and his extended family.”</p><p><em>My family</em>.</p><p>Her therapist makes a thoughtful sort of noise, propping her chin on her hand, a soft smile on her face. “Pelle. It’s been a while since you’ve brought him up in a session,” she says, her tone less judgemental than before, more teasing. Dani flushes despite herself, biting her lip and ducking her head.</p><p>The majority of her nocturnal wanderings with Pelle, the furtive longings of her heart before she met him and after, have been left out of her sessions. There were more pressing subjects to bring up - Christian, Terri, her parents, her classes. Pelle had never been a problem she had needed to solve. Even before he kissed her, before he led her home, before any of that, she had wanted to keep him to herself. Didn’t want to spoil it.</p><p>Still he had managed to slip in, a name dropped here and there, a description of an outing with him, a repeated conversation. She had justified it by telling herself it was the same as it was with her other friends. Even then she had known it for the lie that it was. Pelle had never been just like any of her other friends.</p><p>“It’s been a while since we’ve had a face to face session,” Dani points out, picking at her cuticles before wiping her hands against her thighs. “But yeah, Pelle and I are a thing. That’s why I stayed.We were supposed to come back to New York together, but that um, obviously didn’t happen.”</p><p>Prying her gaze up from her hands, she catches a wave of empathy that washes over her therapist’s face. It is striking, not something that Dani wholly expected to see. Countless hours have been spent on this couch, in this office, working through Dani’s issues, reconciling her sister’s issues, with petty defeats and minor victories. She can’t even count how many text messages have been exchanged or phone calls had. Despite that, the reactions of the past few days, the callous disregard for Dani’s own say, has made any empathy a gift that she has no idea what to do with.</p><p>“That must be very hard.” Her therapist offers, her tone one of genuine feelings. “I know from what you’ve told me that you are very fond of him, even before this most recent turn of events.”</p><p>A smile lights up Dani’s face, a bright flash that destroys her previously reluctant expression, her eyes have a faraway look to them, like Dani is no longer in the room. Her therapist knows the expression even if she has never see it on Dani’s face before, will privately attribute it to love or lust or perhaps a bit of both. The effect is a beautifying one and the therapist feels a flare of fondness for her troubled client.</p><p>“Yeah, very fond,” Dani murmurs, gaze still far from that room. In her mind she is in a field of flowers, Pelle standing a few feet away from her. She knows it isn’t real, even as she longs for it. “I’ve never felt like this before.”</p><p>“Let’s explore that then,” her therapists gently nudges, adjusting her posture in the chair. “Tell me how exactly it feels. What was it like there? Before and after the unfortunate disappearance.”</p><p>Dani blinks and the image vanishes. Her heart twinges in her chest, stomach flipping over as nausea sweeps over her. Her smile dims, a frown creasing between her eyebrows. Leaning forward she reaches for her bottle of water on the small coffee table between them. Unscrewing the cap, she sips it thirstily, drinking it in steady gulps before taking a steadying breath, placing her hand on her stomach to try to quell the urge to throw up.</p><p>“It felt like home,” she says, taking another deep breath as she makes eye contact with her therapist. Gesturing to the door, she starts to stand, pressing her lips together as she inhales through her nose. “Excuse me, um, can I just have a moment? I’m going to the bathroom, excuse me.”</p><p>Hastily she grabs the key to the bathroom, rushing out of the room as soon as her therapist gives her consent to the request. She just barely makes it to the bathroom in time to throw up, dry heaving the contents of her stomach into the porcelain bowl.</p><p>She feels as far from home as she possibly can be.</p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p> </p><p><em>iv</em>.</p><p>“Skitstövel,” Dagny mutters, brows knit together as she stares at the monitor. Pelle cannot see what has her worked up, but the hairs on the back of his neck are standing on end. Every nerve in is body is in high alert. Whatever she is reading, it is not happy or promising news. He could read that on her before the insult left her lips. They were born on the same day, after all, slept in the same cradle now and then. They are practically twins in everything except genetics.</p><p>He waits, arms folded tightly against his chest, fingers knotted in the sleeve of his sweater as he leans imperceptibly toward her.</p><p>“The American government has put a flag on your student visa. A temporary suspension.” Dagny explains looking up from the computer monitor. She taps at a line item on the screen before realising Pelle cannot see it. Carefully, she turns it on its stand to face him, pointing out the offending line once more.“These Americans appear have quite a bit of clout. It will take a bit of doing to get it undone, but it is not impossible. For now, though, you are stuck here.”</p><p>“Shit.” Slumping into a chair like a puppet who has just had his strings cut, he runs his hand through his hair, making strands of it stand on end. “Shit.”</p><p>The office is spartan, little more than a pair of desks and a few filing cabinets. The computers are not the newest, but they work and work well, carefully tended to like so much the Hårga have. Jarl’s years of coursework at a technical college have seen to that.</p><p>This news is a striking blow. Before its revelation, there had been a lingering hope that he could get on a plane a week before the start of the new semester. That he could slip gracefully back into the life that had vacated. Perhaps Dani could meet him at the airport. The Elders had confiscated his phone, wiping it before, smashing it under a hammer. He will get a new one when he goes back out on pilgrimage they assure him. But for now this is for everyone’s protection. During his earlier journeys, Pelle had always been careful in his communications, speaking in an almost code as he sent words back. Use of VPNs and self-deleting applications to acquire information, saved under a passcode. Now a trail so minimally made is being swept further clean.</p><p>The one downside is the lack of ability to contact Dani, to reach out and hear her voice through the line. He would even settle for something as banal as a text exchange right now, even if they would all pale in comparison to being by her side.</p><p>Now even that possibility seems to have been cleaved away.</p><p>Sensing his growing despondency, Dagny rises from her desk, coming to rest her head against his, a hand on his shoulders, pressing her legging clad hip against the arm of the chair. “It is not impossible,” she repeats, giving him an affectionate nudge. “Do you not have faith in me?”</p><p>Pelle looks up and into Dagny’s open face, blue eyes meeting blue. “Forgive me, sister, I do. You have always been the smartest of us all,” he tells her offering up a weak smile as she laughs. It’s calling back to a taunt that she would make to them as children, how she was the best of them born that year. The fixer of problems, unweaver of knots. “But…”</p><p>He trails off, not quite able to voice how his hopes had been crushed, how the plans that he had been quietly making seem permanently disrupted. His intuition is clearing drips and drabs, so this news is not catching him wholly unawares. There had been that lurking sense when he had gone to check on the status of his flights and Mats had steered him off to Dagny. Now he knows he was right to suspect that all was not well.</p><p>“But you had hoped that you could get back to her. That the Americans would forget like they do so much else,” Dagny finishes for him with a nod. “Our previous guests appear to have come from very well connected roots. They are not satisfied with the only answers left to them and like to cause trouble. It’s sad really.”</p><p>She gives him a little shake, crouching down until she is eye-level with him. For a brief second, Pelle wonders if she is going to bop him on the nose like she used to do when they were children and she thought he was being foolish.</p><p>“It is sad,” he agrees, clenching and relaxing his fists against his jeans. <em>Oh Dani, I’m coming, I swear,</em> he calls out silently, closing his eyes to picture her face. “Very sad.”</p><p>There are tears in his eyes when he opens them again, blurring his vision a bit, but not enough that he doesn’t see the tears in his sister’s eyes.Dagny wraps her arms around him, holding him tight as they both let the tears fall, reminded again of all that they have lost and the work that needs to be done to get even a fraction of it back.</p><p>“I believe in you,” he tells Dagny softly, voice thick with emotion. “If anyone can do it, it is you. I will do whatever you ask.”</p><p>“Good,” Dagny releases him from the hug, wiping way her cheeks. “In the meantime, I have an idea of how we can reach her.”</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p><em>v</em>.</p><p>Crawling back into her bed after vomiting for the fourth time that day, Dani knows that she can’t deny it. The truth of her situation, of what can be blamed on stress and what can’t be, how she’s checked and rechecked the app on her phone. Curling into a ball under the coverlet, the queen and the bear hanging over her head, she cradles her still soft stomach under the palms of her hands.</p><p><em>Help</em>, she pleads to the universe. <em>Send help. Send him. I need him, I need them. We need each other.</em></p><p>Unlike so many other times, the universe gives her an answer. It isn’t exactly what she wanted, it isn’t his arms around hers or her sisters holding her tight and braiding her hair. It isn’t a strawberry bun or a whiff of herbs. No, the universe’s answer comes as a gift. Quiet and unassuming and it takes days for her to realise it is there at all.</p><p>For now the universe exists exclusively in her apartment, with the opened windows and not enough breeze. The moment she feels better she’ll go down to the Duane Reade on the corner, pick up three tests, confirm what she knows. She’ll use the self-checkout to avoid any chitchat, even as she craves human contact, her thumbs hovering over various contacts in her phone, she fights against it.</p><p>She will take the test in her bathroom, guzzling coconut water before she pees on the sticks, lining them up like soldiers on the edge of the tub. She will think of Talia’s declaration back in 2016 of how she was throwing an IUD getting party. How her boisterous friend had followed through, working it out with a OBGYN friend of her mother’s. How Dani had sat in the waiting room, waiting for her turn, when she had noticed three missed calls from Terri, along with two from her mother. How she had left that waiting room and flown across the country to another to wait on the aftermath of her sister’s first real suicide attempt. How she had never gone back to complete the insertion process and hadn’t really thought of it. Christian had been obsessive about condoms in a way that suggests something unseemly in hindsight.</p><p>All of this will run through through her mind in the three minutes that she waits for the results.</p><p><em>Pregnant</em>, the digital one will read just as pink lines appear on the other versions. Her heart will throb, stomach plummeting, and tears come as she sends an email to Pelle’s university address, her hands shaking as she types.</p><p>This one will have a single question, no greetings, no farewells. Even the subject line will be blank, even if her email provider doesn’t like it. </p><p>
  <em>When are you coming back?</em>
</p><p>It will sit there, unread, unanswered in that form.</p><p>The universe answers her differently, just when her hope is starting to fade completely away.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>vi.</em>
</p><p>Fall term begins and Dani goes through the motions. What she shouldn’t give for the Hårga to have an instagram account associated with their public businesses right now. Grasping for a glimpse of what is going on back home, a lifeline to the place where her heart resides. None of the photos on her phone — few as there are — fill that hole that has bored into her. It grows larger with each passing day, each tendril of nausea. She can’t even cry anymore. There are no more tears left for her longing.</p><p>A package arrives for her, care of the psychology department. The undergrad tasked with working the receptionist desk flags Dani over when she comes in to use the photo copier on behalf of the class she agreed to TA almost a year ago. She could get out of it very easily, but she doesn’t want to. Having more time to herself is the last thing she needs. Burying herself in her work might not be healthy, God knows that her therapist has told her as much, but she needs this. Less time alone in her head when she’s already so alone in this city is the best thing she has right now.</p><p>Perhaps she should write her thesis about loss.</p><p>“Um, Dani?” The undergrad working the reception desk breaks through her thoughts. He sounds tired and more than a little annoyed. “We have a package for you.”</p><p>Swivelling away the undergrad - Michael, Dani remembers after a moment — picks up a key before getting to his feet and opening a locked cabinet. Frowning slightly, Dani watches him remove a brown paper wrapped package, not big, but not overly small either from within it.</p><p>He carries it over to her, setting it down on the desk and shoving it closer. “You know you’re not supposed to get packages sent here,” he tells her drily.Picking up the clipboard, he holds it out for her. “Sign here.”</p><p>“I won’t do it again,” she tells him absently, completely baffled by the package. She <em>does</em> know better than to get anything other than reference materials sent to the department office. Everything personal in nature would be sent to her home address, especially if she’s the one who ordered it.</p><p>Collecting the rest of the copies from the machine, she places them back into her bag before picking the box up, studying thefront of it for a sign as to its origins. The postmark leaps out at her almost immediately, just as clear as the lack of return address beyond what she surmises must be a post office box.</p><p><em>Sweden</em>.</p><p>Her apartment isn’t close to campus, otherwise she would retreat to it right away, wait to open the package until she is safely ensconced away from prying eyes. But it’s too far to justify, especially when she has to be back on campus in an hour for a seminar. In the end she settles for what passes for her office, little more than a cubical with a door that has a lock on it down the hall. A dedicated place to study and go through research when she’s not using the shared common area to talk to undergrads.</p><p>Walking in double time, she almost drops her keys as she pulls them out of her back, fumbling with the lock before getting side. The walls feel even thinner than normal, but she sets the box carefully down on her desk, sliding her bag off her shoulders before sitting down. Taking a few steadying breaths, she takes the whole box in before she begins to work at the paper. A giddy feeling sweeps through her, like a kid at Christmas. She has no idea what it could be, all she knows that is it is <em>something</em> and that something is likely something <em>good</em>.</p><p>The contents are wrapped in delicate tissue paper, tied with string and dried flowers. She brings the flowers to her nose and inhales deeply, sighing as a familiar rush of memories rises to meet the scent. Untying the string, she finds a beautifully woven shawl underneath, all greens and purples and blues, edged in embroidered runes and tassels. Running her fingers over it, she marvels at the softness of the fabric, the delicacy of the needlework. This was clearly crafted with love, and taking note of the runes, reading the chosen order of them, she knows right away that it was made explicitly for <em>her.</em></p><p>Tears burn her eyes as she picks up the card that slipped out with the gift. It is a simple postcard on handmade paper.</p><p>
  <em>We love you, our daughter, our sister, our Queen. Know that we miss you too.</em>
</p><p>It isn’t signed, but it doesn’t need to be. It is from Hårga, from her family, all of them sending a message when she desperately needed to hear it. Lifting the shawl up, she moves to unfold it, intending to wrap herself in it, luxuriate in the comfort of the smell and the feel of it, when something hard falls out of it, tumbling onto the desk with a gentle clatter. Leaning forward, she frowns until she realizes what it is, a gasp escaping her at the sight of it.</p><p>Sitting there, resting against the Joan Didion memoir she’d been annotating, is a mobile phone.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p><em>vii</em>.</p><p>It had been a gambit, an utter chance.</p><p>When Dagny has suggested it, Pelle had thought it was too good to be true, too simple to work. Surely it must be, or else he’d have come up with it by now, right? In the end it turned out to be something cooked up by Dagny along with Karin and Hanna, using Jarl and Valentin for additional assistance with the legwork after the Elders has approved it.Grandmother Siv had written the note herself. Pelle had pressed a kiss to the package before giving it to the post master at the rural station. The post master had given him a strange look, but said nothing beyond asking if he wanted it charged to the usual account. (The answer had been no; he had paid in cash.)</p><p>“Pelle?” Her voice sounds shaky, crackling along the distance and the dubious connectivity of the satellite phone, pinged a hundred places on the way from here to there. He sighs at the sound of his name on her lips, trying to capture the image of her. Her social media has gone silent since her original journey to Sweden, remained untouched since she was forced back to the United States. With pride he had noted how easily she had shed the American desire to put on a brave face, to pretend that all was well to maintain appearances. All the same, he had longed for a more recent glimpse of her, instead having to conjure her from memory, from old photos and drawings of her.</p><p>“My Dani,” he breathes in reply, his own voice equally shaky to his own ears, an echo of her own relief.Now he can hear the sound of tears beginning in earnest, his arms itching to hold her, aching from being unable to do so.</p><p>Reclining on his bed in the darkness of that September night, he wonders where she is calling from. Is she still in the psychology building? Had she opened it there? A glance at the clock suggests that it is possible, but unlikely. It is closer to midnight here than not. The likely answer is that she has returned to her apartment, tried to follow some semblance of normality before calling him.</p><p>“Oh God, Pelle. I miss you so much. All of you,” her voice cracks, the words tumbling out. His heart seems to catch in his throat at the troubled sound of her voice, the relief and pain all mixed together. “It’s been so hard. I’m trying, I really am, but this isn’t how it was supposed to go.”</p><p>She’s right. This is not how it was supposed to go. He dreamt of her for years before he could name her, knows that she did the same for him. She is a queen, unbowed, ringed in flowers. He leapt over flames for her, pledged his past, his present, and all of his future selves to her. This was meant to be a storm that they narrowly avoided. Instead it’s a massive squall, overturning everything.</p><p>He rolls over, cradling the phone with both hands. “No, min kärlek, this wasn’t. This wasn’t…” he pauses, breathing a curse out at himself, at the fault in his vision, at universe at large. At Christian fucking Hughes, managing to ruin things from the other side of the veil. “I never wanted you to be alone. Not again. Never again.”</p><p>Through the line he hears a soft rustling and wonders if she’s laying down as well. If she’s stretched out on her bed in her apartment that he’s only been in once before, but could probably sketch from memory if he tried. If the poster still hangs above her bed, an omen of what was to come.</p><p>“Pelle, I have something to tell you.” Her words come out in a rush and his heart turns over her words, fear gripping him. Instinctively he finds himself sitting up, every nerve on edge in anticipation. “This isn’t how I wanted to tell you, but don’t worry. It’s good. It’s amazing actually.”</p><p>She laughs, low and soft, one of her secret true laughs. The sound that he savours, just as he savour the shades of her smile. He finds himself smiling in an echo of the one he knows she must be wearing.</p><p>“Then you must tell me now. The what if of what it could bewill kill me if you don’t,” Pelle teases in response, earning another prized laugh.</p><p>“I don’t know. This might knock you flat anyways,” she counters, easily slipping into banter. <em>She’s worried</em>, he realises. <em>She’s afraid of my reaction</em>.</p><p>“Dani, tell me,” he encourages, gentle and firm. “Whatever it is, I will be fine with. As you said, it is good news.”</p><p>There is the sharp intake of breath from the other end of the line, the whisper of air through teeth. Another rustling sound, the echo of something being set down. A cup of water perhaps? Tea? The possibilities feel endless, even as the gap between his request and her answer draws time taught.</p><p>When the moment starts to drag, too endless, too long for it to be as good as she claims, that is when Dani breaks the tension.</p><p>“I’m pregnant.”</p><p>The noise he makes wakes Jarl, who sleepily mutters a disgruntled <em>snälla </em>before turning over. Taking care to not drop the phone, he listens as Dani recounts her first doctor’s appointment, the strange, wondrous sound of the fetus’ heartbeat on the scan. How she has copies of the pictures, but didn’t know where to send them, how to tell him. How she had wished that he was here. If he could, Pelle would harness the wind, sail on a cloud across the ocean to her. Use any magic to make himself there, to make the time and the distance between them so small that it doesn’t count.</p><p>“That’s wonderful. Oh, Dani, you were right, this <em>is</em> amazing news,” he tells her as he slips out of the summer house and out into the moonlit path, pulling on a sweater as he does so. It’s chilly, the taste of winter on the air in earnest, but he cannot feel the cold. Half running, he makes for the open field near the sleeping houses, letting out a joyful whoop once he knows that he is safely away from sleeping ears. The chance is very high that he he has already woken someone, any of the Elders or his sisters who are tending to the newest members of Hårga, still struggling to sleep through the night. That his child, <em>their child</em>, will be counted amongst that number in a years’ time is almost overwhelming.</p><p>He can hear her laughing at his cheers, bright and merry, followed by an admonishment of him making such noise at such an hour.</p><p>"Our sisters will be upset if you wake any of the babies,” she scolds him gently. “They will put you on night duty for a week.”</p><p>“They could put me on night duty for a year and it would be worth it. A child, <em>our </em>child, just wow.” Pelle comes to stand still in the field, scanning the horizon. The world seems so vast now, limitless. The likelihood that he will get any sleep tonight has evaporated. Even if she had just been calling, without such news, the sound of her voice would keep him awake until dawn. Now the sleeplessness is doubly worth it.</p><p>Finding a patch where the grass has become matted down, he lays down upon it, stretching himself out under the dark sky as he listens to her voice, letting it wash over him. Their conversation drifts, meandering around more trivial subjects such as the anthropology department’s disarray at losing three prize students in such a messy circumstance (even if his departure is only temporary) and how her friend Lauren has roped her into joining her weekly trivia team. For his part, he shares progress of the family, how Maja is feeling, how Jarl is hopeless, how young My broke an arm climbing to the top of.one of the barns last week. Little things that he misses by not being there with her and vice versa. The intimacy born of a shared life.</p><p>Eventually she falls asleep on the line, her breathing evening out as the sky starts to pink above him. Softly he sings her a lullaby, even as she weakly protests that she’s only a little tired before giving in. When his song is over, he counts to three before disconnecting the call. He makes no move to return to his bed, but stays out there in the chilly early morning, feeling invigorated. He will wait a little bit before venturing over to the Matriarch’s house, giving Grandmother Siv and Grandfather Sten a chance to have a bit of their own morning before he interrupts it with their news. That is, if Grandmother Siv’s intuition has not already informed her. That is a very real possibility.</p><p>“Wow,” he breathes, still amazed as his breath forms a little cloud over his head. For the first time in weeks, it feels like fortune has finally started to turn back their way. </p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p><em>viii</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I go back?”</p><p>Dani is sitting in another uncomfortable office chair, all rough woven fabric in a pattern and colour straight out of the seventies. The faint buzzing of fluorescent lights is making her feel oddly twitch, a headache threatening to burst to life from just behind her eyes. She wants to move, to get up and out of the windowless office and back out into the early autumn sunshine. It’s the first cool day of the season, the first day where she woke up and felt like she could breathe again, the summer heat starting to die at last.</p><p>Instead she has made her appointment, the one that <em>she</em> made by calling the number on the card one of the State department officials had given her, which one she cannot quite remember. All of their names and faces have started to blur together, only the vividness of the background scenery standing out from that trauma. One day their faces might return to her, but for now they are nothing more than ash and smoke.</p><p>Her hands are folded on her lap, each hand holding the other tight enough to make her knuckles whiten against the navy blue of her suit. It’s a suit she bought when interviewing for graduate programs, one that she bought off the rack and took to a tailor to have altered to fit her proportions. It doesn’t fit quite as well now, the combination of nausea, sickness, and grief having shifted the weight in her body around, altering her shape even as the numbers on the scale remain the same.</p><p>It’s the most adult garment she owns, a ceremonial garb that is meant to evoke a seriousness, a worldliness that her face suggests she has no right to. Another tool to help her project a certain attitude towards the world. Right now it is being worn as a form of armour to help her defend her right to her own heart.</p><p>She had told Pelle that she had made this meeting, scheduled it purposely for the morning even though that is when she tends to feel at her worse, just so that she could call him without time zones getting too much in the way. They are both hopeful for the outcome. If he can’t come to her, then she should be able to go to him, go to their family. It has to be that way. It is the first day of October. She has been gone for nearly two months and her world has changed. She wants to be able to bask in the news with her family, to hold them and be held.</p><p>“We’d prefer if you didn’t, not for a while at least. Not until some things die down.” The American State Department staffer looks tired, bags under his eyes, skin sallow. His own suit jacket his hung off the back of his chair. The expression on his face is one that is aiming for empathy, but instead comes off as merely grim.</p><p>“We can’t stop you. Strictly speaking, you haven’t done anything illegal. It’s not like you’re on a watchlist,” he pauses, letting out a little chuckle at his own thin joke. Dani offers up a watery laugh of her own, but nothing more. A beat passes, the moment too long before he continues. “But seriously though, flying off to Sweden could flag something in our system. At the least we’re looking at more paperwork at the worst,” here another pause, followed by a shrug. “Honestly I don’t know. Your friends’ parents are upset and know the right people. That’s really all there is to it.”</p><p>It is fascinating, how borderline blase this man is being when talking about human lives. <em>Her </em>life in the immediate, the disruption of it in various ways. The loss of lives overseas, that parents are grieving and want to bury their sons, want to have some sort of retribution. All of this is relatively normal. But to this man, it seems to merely be business as usual.</p><p>Recoiling from that thought and this man, Dani frowns. “How long?” She asks, voice cracking. Pausing she takes a sip of water before continuing. “How long do you think it will go on?”</p><p>The man shrugs, drumming his fingers against his desk. “No idea. They want the bodies, plain and simple. The Swedes say that’s unlikely, if not impossible. So it could be a few more weeks or months or years. Between you and me,” he leans forward, voice dropping to a conspiratorial hush. “Some of these parents have pretty deep pockets. That’s attractive to this administration. So while the State Department thinks repatriation is unlikely, they’re going to at least try. Until the election is over at least.”</p><p>A look of horror crosses onto Dani’s features. She can only assume that the election he’s referring to is the one in 2020. That’s over a year away. She can’t wait another year. She barely wants to wait another <em>day, </em>even though she would for obvious logistical reasons. Her hand absently presses against her lower abdomen, protectively covering what is growing within it. The last thing she wants is for her child to be born here, so far from its true home.</p><p>“Is there anything that I can do?” It’s the only question that she has left and she knows the answer is likely <em>no</em>. Her power in this particular situation, her ability to move the pieces, is relatively meagre.</p><p>“Not really. Unless you can magically show us where the bodies are and get them back here and we both know that’s not happening.” The man laughs, impressed by his own dark joke. He has no idea that there are no bodies to be found. That neither Mark, Josh, nor Christian died in a crevasse or drowned in the sea. They are just ashes and bone.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p><em>ix</em>.</p><p>“I am trying to get back, but they’re telling me that I shouldn’t.” Her voice is a worried whisper, though he knows that she’s alone. She told him as much, how she is making herself lunch in her apartment before returning to campus for an afternoon class she’s assisting on.</p><p>Each of their daily calls is peppered with updates such as this, each of them passing details, both grand and small, to one another. Pelle knows that he isn’t the only member of their family that she is in regular communication with. The phone they sent her had been carefully loaded with various contacts, both in Hårga and abroad. Those of their siblings out on pilgrimage nearer to her, in timezones less confining, are just a touch away when Pelle cannot be reached. It provides some relief to both of them. </p><p>“What are we going to do?” She asks him, sounding small, sounding alone. From what he has been told, Dani’s friends only have a limited understanding of her particular situation, the odd nature of her grief. They are being supportive, but that support is just a shallow reflection of the true support that she craves.</p><p>“I don’t know,” he answers, his own heartbreak in his voice. His mind is scrambling, turning over various possibilities, various things that he can do from so far away. Dagny is still working diligently on his visa issues, he’s still in communication with his advisors back in New York. They know that there is something going on with his family, some need for him to take an unplanned gap semester. They’ve decided that he can use some of this time for fieldwork towards his degree, that the time isn’t entirely wasted.These professors don’t realise that his advanced degree is one of the lower things he’s missing about New York.</p><p>“I won’t tell you not to worry,” he assures her, knowing that it would do little good. Worry is natural, it’s normal in such a fraught circumstance. “I love you, my Dani. We will find a way.”</p><p>The runes have said as much, even if they do not provide direction as to what that way is. </p><p>“I love you too, Pelle.”</p><p>Leaning against the lumber mill, huddled in wool coat, Pelle turns over his options in his mind. Something strikes him, a clear clanging bell. “How about I send you a gift? From the whole family?”</p><p>“You don’t have to do that.” Her voice brightens, even as she deflects. “I don’t want to trouble you.”</p><p>He shushes her with a laugh, waves a hand dismissively in a gesture that she cannot see. “It’s no trouble, never any trouble. I want to.”</p><p>“What is it?” Now Dani is letting her curiosity win out over her years of being trained to take less, to want less. The little girl in her, the child who wants to be adored and spoiled, is coming out to play.</p><p>“Now, now,” he tuts in faux admonishment. “If I told you, that would ruin the surprise. Trust me, min kärlek, you will love it.”</p><p>And that, he can say without a doubt.</p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p>
  <em>x.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>On second Friday in October, there is a knock on the door.</p><p>Dani hadn’t been expecting anyone, the buzzer hadn’t gone off requesting someone be let it. She hasn’t ordered anything and has no idea who it could be. Pulling on a long duster sweater as she unfolds herself from her small couch, she pads softly to the door. Peering through the peephole, she lets out a squeak of surprise at who is on the other side of it. Quickly, she undoes the chain and the lock, swinging the door open on two bright and shining faces. Hanna and Karin stand on the threshold, looking perfectly at ease and effortlessly cool in their street clothes. Dani thinks it is a bit unfair how each woman can look good in both that and their festival clothes. Hanna is holding a small white box in her hands, a rucksack slung over her shoulder.</p><p>Stepping back, Dani ushers them both inside her apartment, barely having time to close the door behind them before she is engulfed in a hug. Tears spring to her eyes almost immediately and she squeezes her eyes shut to keep them at bay, For the moment, she holds onto her sisters, letting herself be held in return, a small circle of home being brought to her.</p><p>“You’re pregnant,” Hanna says at once, eyes shining brightly when they finally break apart. “Oh this is so wonderful. A child of the May Queen and her consort.”</p><p>Dani had already told them both via text message, knowing enough about Hårga to know that even when on pilgrimage, news travels fast. She also knew that both of her sisters were in North America, Hanna in Toronto and Karin in Chicago, but she had never expected them to be <em>here</em>.</p><p>This must be the gift that Pelle was referring to.</p><p>Both women have brought more than just their presence as a gift. The box that Hanna had been carrying holds a princess cake, a bright green dome with a pink sugared rose on top.</p><p>“We can’t celebrate without cake,” she explains with a flourish as she starts to root around in the cabinets for plates and a knife, not bothering to ask if she should. Little needs to be explained that what is Dani’s home is theirs as well. It surprises Dani how little this minor intrusion bothers her.</p><p>While Hanna bustles around the kitchen, Karin opens up her wheeled suited, much larger than is needed for a weekend trip. Its presence had confused Dani, but now that her sister has opened it, she can see the reason for a larger case. From within it Karin carefully removes a massive quilt, patterns of blue and white, squared with yellow.</p><p>“Grandmothers Svea and Irma sent this for me to bring to you,” she explains, unfolding it so that Dani can see the pattern in full before offering it to her. “So you can have something of Hårga with you, to help you sleep.”</p><p>The quilt emits the faintest scent of lavender and a few other herbs that Dani can only attribute to the sachet Pelle gave her when she was panicking months ago. Inhaling deeply, she finds herself relaxing, pressing her cheeks against the fabric.</p><p>“I love it,” she says opening her eyes to find Karin and Hanna watching her, twin smiles on their faces. “And I love you guys for coming here. I didn’t know.”</p><p>“No, Pelle thought it would be a good surprise. It can be so hard, being far from home,” Karin explains, nodding understandingly.</p><p>“We all want what is best for you,” Hanna turns the stove on, cursing softly when the click doesn’t immediately end in a flame. Her curses seem to work as it flames to life almost immediately after, allowing her to put the kettle on it, followed by another for small saucepan with milk. “Both of you.”</p><p>The tears begin to fall in earnest, joyful and no longer able to be contained. This is exactly the gift that she needed, perfect in every way. All of this she repeats to Pelle half an hour later when she excuses herself to call him, to tell him what their sisters have brought.</p><p>That night Dani falls asleep easily, sleeping deeply. All three women are sleep in the same small space, having dragged her mattress to the floor to make a larger bed with it and the couch cushions. Dani had let Karin braid her hair, humming along to a song both women had worked to teach her.They had feasted on ordered Thai food, Karin explaining her weakness for drunken noodles with a laugh and a shrug.</p><p>Her sisters hold her as she falls asleep, carrying the promise of home, the hope of it along with her to her dreams.</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p><em>xi</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“I found a way. A loophole. It isn’t perfect, but this case is going nowhere on their end. The Americans will give up eventually, let it go once their interests have drifted elsewhere.” Dagny’s eyes are shining, a bright smile on her face as she holds out a piece of paper for Pelle.</p><p>“It will soon be the holidays after all. Nothing gets done during the close of the year,” Jarl notes. “Why would it be any different in America?”</p><p>“It is only late October,” Pelle remarks drily, a bemused smile on his face as he takes the offered papers. His heart is pounding in his chest. The promise of fresh hope can be tasted on his tongue.</p><p>He looks down at the paper, frowning by what he now holds. It’s a printed airplane itinerary, a somewhat complicated journey from the look of it with two stopovers and a terminus in Canada. Looking back up at Dagny, confusion is plain on his face. “You’ve booked me a flight?”</p><p>Something is stirring in his veins. An encouraging beating of his own heart, a song finally starting to be sung at an audible level after months of drifting in background noise. He has his suspicions as to what this means, but he needs to hear it from someone else. Needs to know that this isn’t just his imagination getting in the way.</p><p>Dagny nods, smiling beatifically. More of their siblings have started to drift over, to gather at the door, pressing in on them. “You can go to her. You can bring her home.”</p><p> </p><p>⚭ ⚭ ⚭</p><p><em>xii</em>.</p><p>Montreal is over ten hours from New York City by train.</p><p>Traveling by train is an anachronism, an act born out of what is not a wholly irrational fear. Getting on a plane seems exhausting, dangerous, taking her right back to the last international flight she took. She doesn’t want to go back to that day, even as it lingers, blurred and grey in her memory.</p><p>Pelle had told her of Dagny’s plan, an email with a receipt for an Amtrak ticket arriving in her inbox not much later. Karin must have purchased it as soon as Dani had consented.</p><p>“Are you sure you don’t need me to go with you?” Amy had asked when she had come over to help Dani pack, folding sweaters and dropping them into Dani’s open suitcase. “Just to keep an eye out for you and little bean.”</p><p>“I appreciate the offer, I really do. But you’re doing more than enough for me by taking over my TA duties and watering my plants,” Dani had acknowledged with a shake of her head. “That’s more than I can ever ask for.”</p><p>Amy’s shrug had been easy, a light dismissal of any hardship. “It’s nothing. I TA’d this class for Dr. Tsing last semester. The term is almost over, anyways. It’s all soothing undergrads and telling them to get better sources now.”Her friend had dropped the last sweater in the case, getting to her feet and wrapping Dani in a huge. My only demand is that if its a girl, she gets my name as her middle name. I’m going to be the best auntie in the world, aren’t I, little bean?”</p><p>The memory of that makes Dani’s heart swell as she watches the colours of upstate New York and rural Vermont blur by. A cacophony of autumnal foliage, clusters of tourists getting off at various towns to enjoy the season, take in the quaintness of a life so close, yet so far from that in the city. Her headphones sit unused in her purse. The journey is long, but Dani wants to be as present as she can for as much as she can, only surrendering to a nap for a few hours in the middle.</p><p>Gare Centrale is a modern block, a mix of Art Deco and international styles, in the midst of a city that would prefer to be old world European. It strives to be something else, longs for another world, but inside looks like it could be in inner bowels of Penn Station. Like Dani has traveled hundreds of miles and none at all, bar the bas reliefs sculptures that decorate the walls.</p><p>It feels like a different world. She gets through passport control and customs easily, having nothing to declare and not much in the way of luggage.The purpose of her trip is an easy one, one that merits a smile from the customs officer.</p><p>“I’m here to visit my boyfriend,” she explains, absently touching her stomach. A small mound is forming there, barely visible when she’s wearing form fitting clothes, but completely hidden now. A secret that she’s carrying around with her.</p><p>“Montreal can be very romantic,” the border agent says with a smile, stamping Dani’s passport and handing it back to her. “Enjoy your stay.”</p><p>“Thank you. I will,” Dani returns with a smile, pulling her bag behind her as she enters the larger crowd of the terminal.</p><p>They hadn’t agreed on a spot to meet. Pelle had arrived two days earlier, setting things up at their Airbnb before coming to meet her. Part of Dani wonders if he is going to have some cheesy sign or balloons, a silly sight right out of the movies. Instantly she brushes that thought way. They won’t need it.</p><p>And in the end, they don’t.</p><p>Like the invisible cord that connects her heart to his has been awoken, she finds her feet moving in a direction towards the wall that is marked EST under the sculptures. Her eyes scan the crowd, searching for him, wondering where he could be. Underneath her loose tunic sweater, she is wearing the blue shirt he was wearing when they arrived in Hårga on her birthday, the smell of him almost faded away.</p><p>The crowd parts, as if by some spell, just as she starts to wonder if she should turn the other way. Turning her head, she sees him standing there, catching sight of him just as he sees her.</p><p>“Pelle.” It doesn’t come out louder than a whisper, would be impossible to hear unless he was only a foot away. But she sees his mouth move, forming her name. Picking up speed, she almost lets go of her suitcase to get more momentum, remembering that she needs it at the last second. He starts to move towards her, the crowd instinctively seeming to understand that something is happening here, people moving out of their way easily.</p><p>“Dani,” he repeats just as he sweeps her into his arms, up and off her feet. She wraps her arms around him, tangling her fingers in his hair as she brings her mouth to his, kissing him with a desire to make up for all the time that they have lost out on.</p><p>The problems are not gone, the trouble has not fully fled. But for now, in this train station, Pelle returns her to her feet, each kiss they exchange quieting the world a little more, putting wrongs to right.</p><p>Tomorrow they will deal with what they can and must do, together once more. But now they are simply them, blissfully able to ignore the wolf whistle someone points in their direction, a blush colouring Dani’s cheeks at the sound of it. They break apart, his mouth smudged with her red lip gloss. He interlaces his fingers with hers, taking her suitcase with his free hand, leading her towards the exit.</p><p>“Come, let me take you back to our place.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hello! </p><p>I would like to apologise for this chapter taking way, <i>way</i> longer than I had intended it to. Things got completely wild in real life and took my time to write this right along with it. That was very inconsiderate of the rest of my life. The universe and I have had strong words, but have mostly settled on a good outcome. I hope that this chapter being on the longer side makes up for it. There is only one more chapter left in this puppy, wherein I stitch everything back together. There is a strong possibility that that one will also be beastly long. </p><p>I also have an AU/what if scenario of a Dani/Pelle fic kicking around in my head, begging to be written. I have sat it in a corner and won't let it out until this is done as I refuse to have multiple WIPs running around, completely out of control. I have to have at least <i>some</i> standards for myself. </p><p>I would like to give a massive shout-out to Rimanez's <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23377501/chapters/56015182">Held Sooner</a> which did the 'Dani-is-having-Pelle's-baby' thing first, but in a different and absolutely wonderful way. If you have not read it yet, go do that now. I'll wait. If you have read it, then read it again. It's so incredibly worth it.</p><p>A visual reference for Gare Centrale in Montreal can be found <a href="http://artdecomontreal.com/2008/05/06/tour-of-central-station/">here</a>. It's kind of a wild visual ride. </p><p>Thank you all for the comments and kudos and for simply giving my words your time. I love to hear your thoughts and I very much appreciate them!</p>
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